Prince Andrew latest: ‘Collapsed business deal’ leaves Andrew at risk of Royal Lodge eviction

Prince Andrew will be invited to a Jeffrey Epstein file investigation overseen by the US House Oversight Committee, according to Congressman Stephen Lynch, Democratic Representative for Massachusetts.

Prince Andrew is reportedly at risk of eviction from his Windsor property after the “collapse” of a business deal that provided him with significant financial support.

The deal, as reported by The Telegraph this morning, was intended to allow the prince to abide by his lease at the lodge by giving him the financial means to pay for its upkeep.

This maintenance cost is part of the demands of the lease agreement on the 30-room property on which Andrew has paid a “peppercorn” rent for two decades.

It is understood that without the collapsed business deal, Andrew may no longer be able to afford the upkeep and faces eviction from the property.

Pressure is mounting for Prince Andrew to have his dukedom formally removed following the publication of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir.

A poll conducted by YouGov on Tuesday 80 per cent of the public back official removal of the dukedom. Last week, Prince Andrew said he would stop using his Duke of York title to avoid distracting from the work of the King and the royal family, but the survey found most Brits wanted the title to be stripped officially.

The survey showed that 63 per cent of nearly 6,700 adults questioned were “strongly” in favour of formal removal of the dukedom and 17 per cent “somewhat” supporting the idea, while 6 per cent were opposed to it – 4 per cent somewhat and 2 per cent strongly – and 14 per cent did not know.

Sky Roberts, Giuffre’s father, has denied his late daughter’s accusation and said in a statement included in her book, Nobody’s Girl, that he “never knew what was going on with Epstein” until he read about his sex crimes online.

In an interview with NBC News, her brother, Sky Roberts Jr, said that he had confronted their father about the allegation, choking up as he recalled: “I just, I said – we know,” he recalled, choking up.

“I mean, you were Dad. You sexually abused your daughter. It’s absolutely heinous what he did.”

He also remembered his father buying “decently nice things” at various points in their childhood, including a boat. He added: “If there was a payment wired to him, like it would, would be disgusting, be disgusting that he accepted money.”

The Met refused to open an investigation into sworn allegations of sexual assault against Prince Andrew, despite keenly investigating cause celebres such as Partygate. Their insistence that the royal family are not above the law rings hollow, says Nigel Cawthorne:

Cabinet minister Peter Kyle has said that anyone who knows anything about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, including Prince Andrew, should fully cooperate with investigators to help deliver justice for the victims.

“I think anybody that has any information that could bring justice and information to victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes should be fully engaging with any of the authorities that are seeking to deliver that information and justice for the victims,” Mr Kyle told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

“So of course, anybody, anywhere that has information that can deliver that justice should be sharing it openly.

“I believe that Andrew, in the past, has said that he would co-operate, and I urge him to stick to his word on that.”

“She wanted all her suffering to have accomplished something,” writes Amy Wallace, Virginia Giuffre’s collaborator, at the beginning of her bombshell posthumous memoir, Nobody’s Girl.

But what is known, from reading the 400-page diary-style book, is that Giuffre, who died by suicide aged 41 in April this year, was determined to tell her story of how power, corruption and alleged sex abuse colluded to leave victims, like her, scarred after years of alleged abuse.

As the book is published, The Independent looks at the biggest revelations:

Virginia Giuffre’s co-author Amy Wallace has urged Prince Andrew to share what he knows about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.

Ms Wallace told BBC Newsnight that there was a time when Prince Andrew “indicated he was willing to help investigators in the US” but he was “never available, for some reason”.

“That’s something he could still do,” Ms Wallace said.

She added: “He could say, as he has repeatedly, ‘I still deny that I was involved… however, I was in these houses and I was on that island and I was on the jet and I saw things, and I know how much these women have suffered and I would like to share what I saw’.”

Giuffre has claimed that Prince Andrew had sex with her on three different occasions, but the King’s brother has denied all wrongdoing.

Giuffre, 41, died by suicide in April this year while working on the book with co-author Amy Wallace. Released Tuesday, Nobody’s Girl explores in often harrowing detail how Giuffre was subjected to abuse by the rich and powerful and how she fought for justice.

The book’s release comes as President Donald Trump remains under intense pressure to release all of the U.S. government’s files on Epstein.

Here’s a look at some of the key questions Giuffre asks in her book that, for now, remain unanswered:

Prince Andrew has lived rent-free at Royal Lodge, a 30-room Windsor mansion, under a 75-year lease signed in 2003 with the Crown Estate.

Instead of paying annual rent, he made upfront payments of about £8m for renovations and future rent – effectively buying out his lease, BBC reported.

The deal allows him to stay without ongoing rent but requires him to maintain the property.

Prince Andrew’s rent is described as a “peppercorn”, which is a token sum, such as £1 a year, often used in long leases as a symbolic legal payment rather than a commercial one.