British Royal Family member Prince Andrew drew scorn and ridicule Wednesday as details emerged of his sexual assault lawsuit settlement in the U.S. for an eye watering £12 million ($U.S. $16.3 million).
One unanswered question that is driving the public response is who exactly is picking up the tab. Is it his mother the Queen, Prince Andrew personally or will the funds come directly from taxpayers via the public purse.
The duke receives a Royal Navy pension and a stipend from the Queen’s Duchy of Lancaster income as his sole means of support.
As Breitbart News reported, the lawyer for accuser Virginia Giuffre revealed Tuesday that both parties had settled out of court, sparing Andrew the public humiliation of a trial. The precise financial details were not revealed.
Giuffre alleges she had sex with Andrew when she was 17 and a minor under U.S. law, after meeting him through the late disgraced U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The prince has not been criminally charged and has denied the allegations although he has payed a high cost in losing the trust both of the public and his former military colleagues.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Andrew was to pay the bulk of the settlement to Giuffre and £2 million to a charity for victims of sex trafficking.
British media said the prince was now “finished”, and called on him to withdraw entirely from public life, after he was already stripped of his honorary military ranks and the title of “His Royal Highness”.
“A man truly determined to clear his name of such heinous allegations would have fought tooth and nail… and then, if he won, tried to rebuild his life,” said an editorial in the Sun.
“That is all over. Andrew is finished — undone by his insufferable arrogance, entitlement and staggering naivety.
“He must retreat entirely from public life and live out his retirement in ignominy,” it added.
British commentators also ridiculed Andrew for claiming he had never met Giuffre, querying why he had agreed in that case to settle for such an apparently large amount, and pointing to a photograph of the pair together when she was 17.
Mark Stephens, a media specialist at law firm Howard Kennedy, told BBC television “Andrew is going to have to confirm that the public hasn’t paid this, because that threatens to have wider implications for the Royal Family”.
AFP contributed to this story