Private jets are the least of the Royal Family’s problems
To the best of our knowledge, Meghan and Harry are not friends with a convicted paedophile. So why do we care about their flight plans more than Prince Andrew’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, asks Katy Hall.
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If there’s one thing that’s become apparent in recent weeks, it’s that the British royal family really likes private planes.
If it’s not Prince Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex using them to hop from one exclusive hideaway to another while holidaying in Europe last week (Ibiza! London! The French Riviera!), it’s the revelation that Prince Andrew used his late mate Jeffrey Epstein’s plane to jet around the world as he pleased for years.
Admittedly, Harry and Meghan’s actions aren’t great. The news that the couple had opted for charter flights over commercial options came just weeks after Harry announced that, in a bid to do their bit for climate change, they would have no more than two children. He also made a swipe about how ridiculous it is that carrots come in plastic bags, and while no one can fault him for pointing out the painfully obvious, it could be argued that if you’re going to go after root vegetables, you should probably go after jet fuel consumption, too.
MORE OPINION: Really, Harry? There are better ways to help the planet
Still, sledging the newly minted Duke and Duchess of Sussex has become somewhat of an unofficial Commonwealth sport. And while sometimes it’s fairly earned, this week is not the week that they should be the royals hung out to dry.
Yes, getting multiple private jets around Europe is bad. But being friends with a convicted paedophile is far, far worse.
For almost ten years, Prince Andrew shared a deeply intimate friendship with the late New York financier Jeffrey Epstein.
And as horrifying allegations continue to come to light against Epstein and his posse of friends of significant power and profile, so too do the questions around the Prince. Namely what he did and didn’t know, and how was he involved — if at all?
RELATED: Prince Andrew responds to Epstein sex scandal
Epstein-related allegations against the Prince include claims in court documents he attended a pool party where topless children were paid to provide massages to guests, and that he sexually engaged with a child, Virginia Roberts, on three separate occasions. The Prince strenuously denies all allegations.
But it’s clear that the Prince knew his friend had a penchant for children.
In 2001, Prince Andrew visited the London home of Epstein’s former girlfriend and confidante Ghislane Maxwell, where he and a then 17-year-old Roberts happily posed for a photo. The fact that an American child was in London with a 40-year-old Maxwell and a 51-year-old Epstein apparently didn’t seem to raise any alarm bells for the Prince, because their friendship carried on until 2010, two years after Epstein pleaded guilty to sexual crimes relating to minors.
What’s perhaps most perplexing, though, is that at the same time Prince Andrew was so close to Epstein, his own two daughters — Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie — were teenagers within the very age range Epstein sought out. How you could know that your friend had a criminal predilection for girls the same age as your own children and turn a blind eye to the fact feels genuinely impossible to make sense of.
And so of course the Palace wants us to get back to estimating how much Harry and Meghan’s flights cost the taxpayer.
After all, that’s far more comfortable than asking the uncomfortable question of why a grown man was friends with a convicted paedophile — and why the royal family have made a show of rallying around Prince Andrew in recent weeks — isn’t it?
Originally published as Private jets are the least of the Royal Family’s problems
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