Prince Andrew sex abuse accuser Virginia Giuffre will be freed from gagging clause

Prince Andrew’s sexual abuse accuser Virginia Giuffre could return to public attention next month when her gag clause is lifted.

Ms Giuffre, who now lives in Australia, alleged that she was forced to have sex with the duke three times when she was 17 on the orders of the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

She commenced her legal action against Andrew in August 2021, seeking unspecified damages for assault, including rape, and the infliction of emotional distress.

It was settled out of court on February 15, 2022, for $12 million, with $2 million believed to have been donated to his sex trafficking charity. The duke did not admit to wrongdoing and has consistently and vehemently denied the claims.

As part of last year’s settlement, the Duke of York and Mrs Giuffre signed a one-year agreement which meant that neither party could discuss the case or the financial settlement made. The Telegraph informed.

With this clause lifted in a few weeks, Ms Giuffre, who is married with children, will likely be free to speak out about the abuse of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

This could be writing a book, doing print or televised interviews with the media, or writing a book.

The duke settled the case with Ms Giuffre ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee last year, after being stripped of all military titles and patronages and ordered by Buckingham Palace not to use his title of Her Royal Highness in January. The Palace also ruled out a return to public functions.

The late Queen contributed to the settlement sum of $12 million, and the gag clause was seen as critical in the deal made.

At the time, some palace aides criticized the length of the agreed silence, with a friend of the duke saying: “If you’re going to seek a legal resolution at those kinds of prices, then you want silence, but what we have is silence for the Jubilee of Platinum,’ reported The Telegraph.

The specific terms of the gag clause have not been published. It will be lifted at the end of next month.

It is believed that Ms Giuffre may be free to publicly address how Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sexually trafficked her.

She could have agreed not to repeat her accusations about Prince Andrew, or talk about him in relation to the criminal couple.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the cancellation of the clause soon.

It comes as King Charles kicked Andrew out of the royal fold and told him he was “on his own” in the wake of the scandal surrounding his associations with the late pedophile financier Jeffery Epstein, a source has claimed.

The Duke of York was told to no longer use Buckingham Palace as office space, effectively severing his final link to his former life as a working royal, according to a report in Sun.

“Any presence in the Palace has officially ended,” a source was quoted as saying. The king has made it clear. He is not a real worker. He is alone.

As part of the King’s decision, Andrew will not be able to use the address for any future correspondence. According to reports, the minimal staff who had been retained since he left public service three years ago are now facing joblessness.

The report came after it was announced that Queen Consort Camilla would replace the disgraced duke as colonel of the Grenadier Guards in a shake-up of the royal military’s senior ranks.

Andrew inherited the post of colonel in the Grenadier Guards from his late father, the Duke of Edinburgh, when he retired from public life in 2017.

After his disastrous interview with BBC Newsnight in 2019, the Queen forced him to step down from his official royal duties.

Until this year, he had maintained 10 military affiliations, including colonel in the Grenadier Guards, as he worked to clear his name amid the scandal surrounding his association with American pedophile Jeffery Epstein.

He was ultimately stripped of the ceremonial title earlier this year following his decision to settle a civil lawsuit with one of Epstein’s victims, Ms Giuffre, who had also accused him of assault. He has always flatly denied wrongdoing.

Earlier this year, the Duke of York was left ‘deprived’ and ‘tearful’ when Charles told him, in no uncertain terms, that his days as a working royal were over.

At the time, a source told the Mail on Sunday that “Andrew was totally shocked” and “totally bereft”. He always believed there was a way back.’

Andrew has denied being close to Epstein, who committed suicide in jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges.

Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in a Florida jail after being convicted last December of child sex trafficking and other charges.

His mother, the late queen, reportedly did not explicitly tell him there would be no way for him to return to public life.

As a result, he was slow to see what the rest of his family, and the public, had recognized for months.

“Until meeting face to face with his brother, Andrew believed there was a way back, that he could somehow rehabilitate himself and play a role in The Firm in the future,” the source said. ‘He left the meeting shocked. He is still in shock. He is completely lost and very depressed.

At the meeting, Charles, who was not yet a king, said: ‘Go and have a good life, a good life, but public life as a royal is coming to an end… You have to accept this. ‘

As a working royal, Andrew was entitled to a taxpayer-funded security detail made up of armed policemen who accompanied him on all visits outside of Windsor, Berkshire.

Now that there is no going back, the Home Office has stripped Andrew of taxpayer-funded security personnel, meaning any armed protection police will be replaced by private companies only allowed to carry tasers.

Former Home Office minister Norman Baker said last week: “Armed protection has always been a status symbol for people like Prince Andrew.

“Of course he should pay it himself and not burden the taxpayer because he is a private individual and does not carry out public functions.”