Royals should strip Andrew of Prince title says Welsh university law expert

Prince Andrew should give up his royal titles – including being a prince – a legal expert at a Welsh university has said.

Dr Craig Prescott, Lecturer in Law at Bangor University, said that in order to maintain public support the monarchy should be “holding Prince Andrew accountable” for “becoming entangled” with sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Writing for the Conversation, Dr Craig Prescott said that the Royal family needed to be seen to be upholding “key constitutional principles”.

“Recently, the Queen stood out as an example when she sat alone at Prince Philip’s funeral as a result of COVID restrictions, for respecting the rule of law in a way that those in Downing Street failed to heed,” he said.

“The monarchy gains much of its strength as an institution from projecting these constitutional principles.

“The monarchy should view its next steps in this context, and apply the same clarity of thought that it is usually so effective at deploying. If Andrew is never going to come back as a senior royal, the monarchy should move to reflect that, in essence holding Prince Andrew accountable for ever becoming entangled with Epstein and Maxwell in the first place.

“The monarchy could ask parliament to pass legislation removing the title ‘prince’ from Andrew, as well as his position as a Counsellor of State and dukedom.

He added: “This could be the opportunity to modernise, slim down the monarchy in a legal sense, and complete the preparations for the reign of King Charles III.”

‘Manoeuvres’

Prince Andrew has faced calls to hand back or to lose the dukedom of York, his Naval service rank of Vice-Admiral and a royal role as counsellor of state in the wake of his settlement of the US civil sexual assault case brought by Virginia Giuffre.

The Duke of York agreed to pay an undisclosed sum as part of the settlement – reported to be £12 million – and accepted Ms Giuffre had suffered as a victim of abuse.

Andrew was forced to return his military titles and royal patronages to the Queen last month and was left to battle Miss Roberts’ allegations as a ‘private citizen’.

However, sources at Buckingham Palace and the Ministry of Defence told the media they did not have plans to review his remaining titles.

Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, said she had met Commons officials to explore ways of forcing Prince Andrew to give up his Duke of York title. The title was bestowed to him by the Queen in 1986.

She said: “Trying to find the right piece of legislation is important but we clearly have got things coming back to the Commons in the next few weeks, there may be some manoeuvres which can be put in place.”

Prince Andrew made no admission of liability and has continued to deny the allegations.