Fri 18 February 2022:
A British politician has stated that he will bring Prince Andrew’s case before the British parliament in order to obtain assurances that public funds will not be used to pay for the sexual assault lawsuit settlement.
According to a US court filing, Prince Andrew and his accuser Virginia Giuffre have reached an undisclosed settlement. “We have reached an out of court settlement,” Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies wrote. The financial terms were kept under wraps.
According to reports in the media, Queen Elizabeth II has agreed to assist Andrew by “personally making a £2 million donation to Giuffre’s charity.”
Now, Andy McDonald, who is a British Labour politician and Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough has said that he would raise the issue next week when MPs return to Westminster after their half-term break.
He told BBC Two’s Newsnight: “This is a person of very high profile involved in a case where his position of authority and privilege has been allegedly abused and it is an enormous sum of money.”
He added, “We don’t know the precise figure but there is a risk that this will be at the public’s expense so we need to have that resolved. We need to know exactly where this money is coming from.”
McDonald said that he is going to take the opportunity to raise the issue in parliament because “the issue isn’t going to go away” until people have that “information and receive assurances” that public money is not going to be used to settle the settlement.
The settlement states that UK’s Prince Andrew, the Duke of York will make a “substantial donation” to a charity established by Giuffre that supports sex trafficking victims.
Giuffre previously claimed that she had sex with Andrew when she was 17 years old and a minor under US law, after meeting him through late US financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew has not been charged criminally and has denied the allegations, and the settlement eliminates the need for a jury trial in the civil case.
Andrew, 61, will also no longer be questioned under oath by Giuffre’s lawyers, who were scheduled to fly to London next month.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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