As Queen works at 94, there’s no way back for Prince Andrew

The royal family has decided the Duke of York will retire from public life over his Jeffrey Epstein links.

The Duke and Duchess of York pack care packages. Picture: Instagram

His mother is still working every day aged 94. His father, 98, recently emerged from retirement to support key workers.

Yet for the Duke of York, it is game over at age 60. Prince Andrew, who stepped back from public life last year “for the foreseeable future”, will not resume official duties.

The prince withdrew six months ago after a disastrous television interview about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted American pedophile. The prince hoped his status change would be temporary, but those hopes have disappeared.

The Queen’s favourite child is not expected to represent her in public again. The royal family has “no plans to review” his position and the Queen is believed to be resigned to her second son’s permanent removal from public life.

After his BBC interview last November, the prince announced in a statement that he was stepping back from public life “for the foreseeable future”, admitting that “the circumstances relating to my former association with Jeffrey Epstein has become a major disruption to my family’s work”.

One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, has claimed that she slept with Andrew on three occasions when she was 17, an allegation he has consistently denied.

The duke recently hired Mark Gallagher, a PR specialist and crisis management expert, to work with his legal team to clear his name and rehabilitate his image.

Last month he was photographed with his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, packing cupcakes at Royal Lodge, the home they share in Windsor, and delivering care parcels to the Thames Hospice.

His withdrawal from a public role has hit bumps, however. The Prince Andrew Charitable Trust is being investigated by the Charity Commission over “a number of issues” after the regulator “raised a concern” about the payment of £355,297 over a five-year period to the duke’s former private secretary, Amanda Thirsk, who was once a trustee. The prince’s household repaid the funds to the trust and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Ms Thirsk.

Andrew faced further embarrassment this month after it was reported that he and the Duchess of York were being sued by a former friend for some £6m allegedly owed for their ski chalet in the Swiss resort of Verbier, bought in 2014 for about £13m.

Royal sources have described Andrew as a “busted flush” whose presence is now “toxic”. He has already given up most of his charity commitments, with many of his patronages severing links with him after the BBC interview, a development that could leave other royals working harder.

But the duke retains his military commands, including his role as colonel of the Grenadier Guards, which he took on from the Duke of Edinburgh in 2017. Senior military officials have called for Andrew to be “faded out” from his honorary appointments, saying he has become an embarrassment to the armed forces.

The prince has been spared a fresh public humiliation with regard to his mother’s birthday parade. Before the cancellation of trooping the colour, which was due to take place on June 13, it had been decided Andrew would not take part in the procession. Military officials said his presence would “unfairly damage the reputation of the Queen and the monarchy”. Now his indefinite removal from public life will add to pressure on the prince to renounce his commands.

Buckingham Palace said that nothing had changed since Prince Andrew’s November statement.

The Sunday Times