Prince Andrew Hides Out At Balmoral To Seemingly Avoid Sexual Assault Papers Ahead Of Upcoming Hearing
Prince Andrew has made a run for it. The 61-year-old royal headed to Balmoral Castle on Tuesday, September 7, to reportedly hide out from looming sexual assault papers.
The Duke of York was photographed leaving his home at Royal Lodge with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson after “multiple attempts” were made to serve him with sexual assault legal papers.
“Andrew was going stir-crazy inside Royal Lodge for the past few weeks,” a source revealed to Mirror. “He wasn’t going horse riding and couldn’t step outside because of attempts to serve him with the legal papers.”
It was also revealed that Andrew is looking for the protection of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, and that this trip marks the second time the Prince has traveled to her Scotland home since the lawsuit was filed. “He knows he is far safer up at Balmoral on the Queen’s estate,” they added.
The papers come as a result of Andrew’s failure to respond to a lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, who is accusing the royal of “rape in the first degree,” according to the court documents filed on Monday, August 9.
Giuffre, a former victim of convicted sex abuser, Jeffrey Epstein, claimed she was also sexually abused by Andrew on three seperate occasions when she was a minor — including one instance on Epstein’s notorious private Carribean island when she was 17.
The lawsuit claims that Giuffre was “forced to have sexual intercourse with Prince Andrew against her will,” although the Prince has consistently denied the claims.
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“Before he abused me, when we just met, Ghislaine [Maxwell] does this guessing game about my age and he guessed right,” Giuffre explained on the Surviving Jeffrey Epstein documentary. “I was 17 and he compared me to his daughters, saying, ‘Oh my daughters are a few years younger than you.”
Giuffre continued in the documentary, claiming that Andrew “is not the prince from the fairytale stories you read.”
A photo of Prince Andrew with his arm around Giuffre was taken the first time they allegedly had sex in 2001 later went viral, although the royal’s advisors have tried to prove that the photo was manipulated.
As OK! previously reported, the Queen tried to mitigate the situation by slowly easing Andrew out of the monarchy.
Stepping back from duties was no longer enough,” a source revealed. “She may be Andrew’s mother, but she’s also his queen — and that role always comes first.”
A hearing via telephone conference is set to take place in New York Monday, September 13.
