Why FBI dropping Epstein case is bad news for Prince Andrew

Telegraph

08-07-2025

The Duke of York is off the hook.
After more than five years of him living under suspicion, fearing that knock at the door, the FBI has drawn a line under its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's network of friends and associates.
It will release no more files nor pursue any 'third parties'.
But there should be no popping of champagne corks at Royal Lodge, the Duke's Windsor home.
Rarely has there been such a pyrrhic victory. For while the decision not to pursue those connected to Epstein may well be a weight off the Duke's shoulders, it changes nothing.
In fact, one could argue the decision to close the case does not help him at all.
If the Duke is innocent, as he has long protested, he would have been better served by the FBI either opening its files to the public or conducting a thorough investigation. Put him through the wringer and then exonerate him once and for all.
This was exactly the Duke's aim when he insisted on pursuing the late Virginia Giuffre's high-profile civil case through the courts.
He vehemently denied her allegations that he had raped and abused her three times when she was 17. Utterly convinced that he would clear his name, he was determined to take it to trial, to let a jury hear the evidence and decide his fate.
In the event, Queen Elizabeth II had other ideas.
After a bruising few months of legal tit-for-tat that saw a steady stream of sordid details dominate the news agenda, the Duke's mother finally had enough and demanded the matter was brought to a swift end. Ms Giuffre was given an out-of-court payout reported to be around £12 million.
Stripped of his military titles, his charity affiliations and his pride, the Duke was cut adrift.
The phrase 'innocent until proven guilty' had never seemed less apt.
But in reality, the damage to the Duke's reputation had been inflicted a long, long time ago.
From the moment Ms Giuffre told her story to a newspaper in 2011, it was hit by hammer blow after hammer blow.
It was then that the world first saw the photograph of Prince Andrew with his arm wrapped around the waist of the teenage Ms Giuffre, who claimed to have been trafficked around the world by Epstein and his close friend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
Ms Giuffre stopped short of alleging that she was forced to have sex with the Duke in London in March 2001. That would come later.
But if there was any goodwill left for this errant royal, any shred of doubt about his accuser's version of events, that too appeared to evaporate following the Duke's disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019.
More was to come. In January 2020, Geoffrey Berman, a US attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that the FBI and US prosecutors had asked to interview the Duke about Epstein but had received 'zero cooperation.'
The Duke was said to be 'angry and bewildered' by the claims, insisting he had received no such request.
Mr Berman returned to the theme two months later, asserting again that contrary to Prince Andrew's 'very public offer to cooperate' he had completely shut the door, raising the prospect that he could be subpoenaed to give evidence.
Given the Duke's performance on Newsnight, no lawyer would have recommended he engage with the US authorities at that time.
But with hindsight, given the FBI's declaration that it has no evidence warranting investigation, those closest to him will now be asking whether things could have been different.
Legal team's litany of failings
Similarly, Ms Giuffre's civil claim could have had a very different outcome.
The Duke's close friends have criticised the litany of failings in the way his sex abuse case was managed by his own legal team and Buckingham Palace.
The decision not to engage with Ms Giuffre's lawyers from the outset, to stonewall in a bizarre effort to avoid the inevitable service of legal papers, did him no favours.
Ms Giuffre was left with no choice but to come at him publicly by filing a civil suit in which she claimed she was forced to have sex with the Duke on three separate occasions in 2001, when she was 17, in London, New York and on Epstein's private Caribbean island.
Had that been managed differently, not least given the latest development, there may have been closure, if not exoneration.
Ms Giuffre's death by suicide in April drew a line under any lingering hope of redemption.
The Duke has already lost everything. Reduced to pottering around the expansive grounds of his Windsor mansion, riding his horses and playing golf, he can barely raise his head above the parapet.
His brand has never been more toxic.
For a senior member of the Royal family who so clearly loved his once lofty status, it has been a punishing lesson.
He can barely dabble in even the most low-profile business venture these days without someone being spooked by his association.
The most recent scandal, involving his business links to Yang Tengbo, an alleged Chinese spy, did nothing to move the dial.
One thing is sure. Given the price he has already paid, the FBI's decision not to pursue an investigation will be perceived by his closest circle of friends and advisors as an exoneration.
They will want it recognised in the form of a public apology. They may even believe that he should be reinstated to his former position within the Royal family.
That will never happen.
This latest, and perhaps final development, will mean that the whole Epstein show finally moves on.
But it is far too late for the Duke, for whom moving on has never been such a distant prospect.