Prince Andrew Spotted Leaving His Home For The First Time Since Bombshell Verdict Was Revealed — Photos
One day after a U.S. judge announced that Prince Andrew will go to trial, the royal was spotted leaving the Royal Lodge on Thursday, January 13.
The prince fought hard to get the trial dismissed, as his accuser, Virginia Roberts — who is suing Andrew for allegedly raping her when she was 17 years old — doesn't live in the U.S. However, the judge sided with Roberts.
"This is very bad news for him — it means he will probably have to settle outside court as 97 percent of civil cases in America do," expert Phil Dampier told The Sun. "There is always the danger that if he pays Virginia Roberts off, that someone else might emerge and make a similar claim but that could be a risk he has to take."
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Riding in the back of a car, Prince Andrew looked distraught.
"Andrew has got no good options now. He can't make things better," media lawyer Mark Stephens said. "Essentially, I think he's either going to have to engage in the trial process or he's going to have to settle and that may well be his least worst option."
In the meantime, people are urging Queen Elizabeth to take away Andrew's titles.
“If he loses the case, the question is: what do you do with him?” a source told The Sunday Times. “You can’t make him resign like you would a normal person but he would be asked to put his dukedom into abeyance.”
“Andrew is still patron of a heck of a lot of charities and they would have to go as well. He couldn’t go abroad because of the risk of extradition so there would have to be a form of internal exile. He would need to scale back on his housing," the insider added.
Andrew has denied any wrongdoing, explaining that he took his eldest daughter, Princess Beatrice, to a birthday party at the time, so he was not at the club with Roberts.
