Prince Andrew made an out-of-court settlement with Virginia Giuffre for a reported £12 million, with £2 million thought to have been donated to her sex trafficking charity. This comes despite his denial of any wrongdoing.
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Potential threat
As a part of the settlement, the disgraced Duke of York and Virginia signed a one-year agreement that restrained both parties from publicly talking about the case or the financial settlement. MailOnline reports that the one-year contract is soon ending in February this year.
Meaning, Virginia will now be free to talk about the case publicly – even do interviews or write a tell-all book if she wants. Metro.co.uk claims that Buckingham Palace urged Prince Andrew to settle the case as the claims were overshadowing the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. It is also believed that the Queen paid a hefty amount of money to settle the case.
What happens now?
Royal aides are understood to be ‘incredulous’ that disgraced Prince Andrew offered so much money only to enforce silence for just a year. A friend of the Duke said:
If you’re going to go for legal resolution at those sorts of prices then you want silence - but what we’ve got is silence for the Platinum Jubilee.
Now that the gagging clause is lifting soon, Virginia would hold great power over the Royals yet again. There may still be restraints on her to repeat the allegations about Prince Andrew or discuss him in relation to Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, but nothing is certain yet.
Sources Used
Daily Mail: Prince Andrew sex abuse accuser Virginia Giuffre will be freed from gagging clause which banned her from speaking publicly about the Duke - one year after he paid out £12m in bid to draw line under scandal
Metro.co.uk: Prince Andrew braced as sex abuse accuser to be ‘freed from gagging clause’
