One of Prince Andrew’s friends has written a book called From Holywood to Hollywood, My Life as an International Libel Lawyer. The guy is Paul Tweed, and he worked with Sarah Ferguson during one of her lowest moments, and that’s how Tweed became close to the Yorks. He devoted a chapter in his book to Andrew’s years-long situation, the mess with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Virginia Giuffre. The 2019 Newsnight interview, the comeback attempts, the 2022 out-of-court settlement with Giuffre are all touched upon. Tweed’s main thesis in this chapter is apparently how poorly Andrew was served by the courtiers and Buckingham Palace. The argument being: this was a crisis which could have been managed better. Even though I think Andrew should have been treated a lot worse, I halfway agree with the general idea that “the Andrew Problem” has been mismanaged and mishandled for years. It’s actually sort of morbidly funny to point out how badly Andrew and the palace clownshow have f–ked this up.

Buckingham Palace let down the Duke of York in its handling of the royal’s sex abuse case, one of his close friends claims. Paul Tweed has criticised what he considers to be a litany of failings in the PR and legal strategies adopted on the Duke’s behalf by the palace and his own legal team.

Mr Tweed has devoted one chapter of his book to the way in which he believes Prince Andrew was tried in the court of public opinion following his November 2019 Newsnight interview, which marked the beginning of the end of his royal career. The Duke was convinced that it would allow him to demonstrate his innocence and to persuade viewers that he had never abused the teenage Ms Giuffre, as she had claimed.

The decision backfired, with the Duke’s bizarre alibis concerning Pizza Express in Woking and an inability to sweat, landing badly. He also failed to express any regret over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, or empathy for his victims. Mr Tweed acknowledges that only the Duke, Ms Giuffre, Epstein and his friend Ghislaine Maxwell knew what took place on the night in question. But he writes that the price paid by the Duke in the wake of the allegations “could hardly have been higher”.

Mr Tweed told The Telegraph that he did not intend to criticise the decisions made on behalf of the Duke, acknowledging that he did not represent him and was not party to the discussions at the time.

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” he told The Telegraph. “For all I know, Andrew may have been given the best advice and chosen to ignore it. My point is that the court of public opinion has far more of an impact than the court of law.”

In the book, Mr Tweed admits that he was astonished that the Newsnight interview was allowed to go ahead, not least given that “everyone close to him”, including his ex-wife, urged him not to do it.

“For Prince Andrew to expose himself to unrestricted cross-examination by a very experienced interviewer, who would have undertaken extensive research and prepared questions well in advance, could not possibly offer any upside in any circumstance to anyone,” he writes. He admits that the Duke’s “focus, demeanour and presentation” were all wrong – something he puts down to his cocooned and protected upbringing – and claims that as a result, he gave entirely the wrong impression.

It took Buckingham Palace four days to issue a statement, in which the Duke accepted that his association with Epstein “had become a major disruption to my family’s work” and that he was giving up his public duties. Mr Tweed suggests that such reactive public statements gave the impression that they had been “dragged out” of a reluctant Duke who was already on the back foot, only serving to compound negative public opinion.

[From The Telegraph]

Tweed also says that Andrew should have been much more proactive and America-focused when Virginia sued him in American court. As in, Andrew should have blitzed the American media, not the British media, with his side of the story. The problem there was that Andrew couldn’t even travel to America because the FBI wanted to interview him about Epstein, Maxwell and Giuffre. Andrew also mishandled the court case by encouraging his lawyers to go after Giuffre – one of Epstein’s most prominent victims – in extremely sexist ways. As for the palace’s mishandling of the 2019 interview… I agree that the palace should have done things a lot differently. It’s hilarious that the palace f–ked it up so badly – they ended up drawing out the story for weeks and months, they refused to make Andrew actually step down from his patronages, and it became yet another story of managerial incompetence from the palace.

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