Father of Virginia Roberts calls for Prince Andrew to go to jail ‘for a little while’ and says it is ‘no longer the time of William Wallace when the Royals could do whatever they want’
- Sky Roberts said Prince Andrew should be ‘held accountable’ for alleged crimes
- His daughter Virginia claims the Duke sexually assaulted her three times
- Andrew’s team claimed this weekend legal papers were not properly served
- He vehemently denies Virginia Roberts’ claims he sexually assaulted her
The father of Virginia Roberts has called on Prince Andrew to be jailed because he ‘needs to know what it’s like to be held accountable’.
Sky Roberts says the Royal ‘thinks he can do whatever he wants’ and should face justice for allegedly sexually assaulting Ms Roberts when she was a teenager. Andrew vehemently denies the allegation.
A pre-trial hearing in her civil action is set to take place today in New York but Andrew’s lawyers are considering boycotting it, claiming the legal papers were not properly served.
The father of Virginia Roberts has called on Prince Andrew to be jailed because he ‘needs to know what it’s like to be held accountable’
Virginia Roberts, then aged 17, is pictured with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in London in 2001. Prince Andrew was served at his home in Britain with paperwork for the bombshell sexual assault lawsuit
Mr Roberts told Good Morning Britain today: ‘I would like to see him go to prison for at least a little while. He needs to know what it’s like to be held accountable for his actions.
‘He needs to be held accountable. This is not the times of William Wallace when royals can just do whatever they want.
‘The times have changed. Prince Andrew thinks it’s still those times where he can do whatever he wants.’
Virginia, now 38, claims the prince assaulted her three times when she was under the age of 18 and a victim of sex trafficking.
She alleges the assault’s took place in London at Ghislaine Maxwell’s house, in New York and on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.
Mr Roberts said: ‘I’m very proud of my daughter to step up and put this civil suit against him.
Sky Roberts says the Royal ‘thinks he can do whatever he wants’ and should face justice for allegedly sexually assaulting Virginia
‘He knows what he’s done wrong and it’s like I’ve been reading this past week, even trying to serve him papers, he was instructing his guards to tell them not to accept his court papers.
‘An innocent man doesn’t do that, only a guilty man does that.’
While the prince’s team are said to have signaled their intent not to participate in the telephone conference today, Judge Lewis Kaplan has ordered that both parties in the case ‘are directed to confer regarding an agreed scheduling order’, according to the Telegraph.
Judge Kaplan is looking to lay out a timetable for management of the case and if Andrew’s lawyers refuse to dial in for the hearing, it may be seen as being in defiance of his order.
Andrew’s legal team run the risk of incurring the wrath of respected judge Lewis A Kaplan
It comes after legal papers were finally accepted by the security chief at Andrew’s Windsor home over the weekend after weeks of ‘avoiding’ officials, court documents dramatically revealed.
The clock is now ticking on the Duke of York, who has 21 days to respond or he will face a default judgment.
Mr Roberts called on Andrew to ‘stop lying’ about his alleged relationship with Virginia and face justice.
He said: ‘I’ve read a lot of things like Prince Andrew saying he’s never met Virginia but everyone around the globe has seen the picture of Prince Andrew with his arm around my daughter and Miss Maxwell right behind him
‘That’s not a photoshopped picture, that’s a real picture.
‘He’s got to stop lying about this and step up. If he’s telling his guards that he can’t even accept papers, an innocent man doesn’t do that.’
The father added that he hugely regrets having taken Virginia to meet Epstein when she started working for him as a massage therapist.
He said: ‘I met Jeffrey Epstein when she first was going to start working for him but it was supposed to be massage therapy.
‘I thought that might be a good job to learn. When I met him he was just in jeans in front of his mansion and seemed like a regular guy
‘I had no idea what was going on. As a father, if I knew anything that was going on, I would have stopped it.
‘It’s huge regret to me. I loved my daughter when she was born, I love her now and I’ve loved her all the times in between.’
Andrew’s lawyers claimed the papers were not properly served and hope to get the case thrown out on a technicality.
In a legal filing, his solicitor Gary Bloxsome said the document Miss Roberts signed in 2009 may make her action invalid. It is the first indication of how the prince and his lawyers intend to fight the case after weeks of silence.
On Friday, a new affidavit was also lodged in New York from a London-based ‘corporate investigator and process server’, Cesar Augusto Sepulveda, who was employed to personally serve Andrew with court papers relating to the US action.
Virginia Roberts (left) claims she was forced to have sex with Andrew when she was 17. Prince Andrew (right in April) has denied the allegations and has not been charged with any criminal offence
He records how he first went to Royal Lodge, Andrew’s Windsor mansion, on August 12 and was met by Metropolitan Police officers guarding the gate who told him they ‘could not raise anyone in charge’.
They said they had been ‘instructed not to allow anyone attending there for the purpose of serving court process on the grounds of the property’. And they added that no documentation would be forwarded on, leaving the server with the strong impression they had been ‘primed’.
But Mr Sepulveda returned on August 27 and was told he could now leave his papers and they would be forwarded.
In other court documents, Roberts’ lawyer David Boies detailed the extensive efforts they went to in order to serve Andrew.
They said that on August 12, four days after filing the lawsuit, he sent copies of the summons and the complaint to five different lawyers from three law firms who they had ‘reason to believe’ represented the Duke.
On the same day Boies’ team emailed the same documents [email protected], the Duke of York’s public email, and got a response acknowledging the email.
Timeline of another dramatic month in the Prince Andrew case
- August 9: Virginia Giuffre files a civil case in New York claiming Prince Andrew sexually abused her aged 17
- August 10: Andrew arrives at Balmoral with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, and is joined by Eugenie the next day
- August 10: US lawyers were allegedly trying to hold him up on his horse to serve him papers before he left.
- August 12: Dame Cressida Dick says she has told Met Police detectives to review the claims against Andrew
- August 13: Ms Giuffre’s lawyer says Andrew will be served papers in person under the Hague Convention
- August 14: Epstein’s telecoms specialist says he will swear on oath that he saw Andrew groping Ms Giuffre
- August 15: Andrew’s friends say he is ‘cheerful and relaxed’ over the case in and will remain silent
- August 16: A source close to the US probe into Jeffrey Epstein says they view Andrew as a ‘person of interest’
- September 7: Andrew leaves Royal Lodge in Windsor and travels nearly 500 miles to Balmoral in Scotland
- September 10: A court document filed by Virginia Roberts’ legal team says Andrew was served with the paperwork on August 27.
- September 13: First telephone conference in the case is scheduled at Manhattan Federal Court in New York
- December 8: Deadline for Andrew to be served with court papers in person under the Hague Convention
On August 18, a copy of the complaint and summons was sent to Blair Berk, the Los Angeles lawyer who reportedly represents Andrew. The next day Clare Montgomery of Matrix Chambers in London replied that she was ‘not authorized’ to accept service on behalf of the Duke.
On August 26, Boies said that his lawyers sent Andrew a copy of the summons and the complaint at Royal Lodge via a same-day courier service. They also sent a copy by regular post in the UK and via FedEx, which was sent on August 16 and was delivered on August 20.
According to Boies these measures ensure they have ‘properly served’ the summons according to the rules of the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial Documents, to which the US and UK are parties.
The serving has now been ratified under civil procedure rules as required by the Supreme Court of England and Wales. There was no comment from the Duke of York’s legal team last night.
They are now trying to access the sealed document Miss Roberts signed via the US courts because they believe it may prevent the case from progressing. The initial hearing is at 9pm UK time on Monday in a conference call before a Manhattan judge.
Miss Roberts’ representatives have indicated they will fight the move by the prince’s team, saying there is ‘no evidence’ he was ever intended to be covered by the previous legal agreement.
The 38-year-old, who is arguably Epstein’s most high-profile victim, has repeatedly accused the Queen’s son of having sex with her three times when she was aged 17 in London, New York and the British Virgin Islands.
Last month she launched a surprise legal move lodging a civil claim against the prince for rape, sexual assault and battery. Andrew, 61, has refused to comment on the case but has previously strongly denied her claims.
Miss Roberts alleges she was scouted and groomed as a schoolgirl by Epstein and his then-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, before being used by the billionaire financier as an underage ‘sex slave’.
In 2009 she reached a confidential settlement in Florida with the financier that may contain clauses which prevent her from taking action against individuals she has accused of being co-conspirators of the tycoon.
One of those was high-profile US lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who previously represented Epstein. He was accused of sexual assault by Miss Roberts in 2019.
But last month she reportedly dropped the claim because of the Epstein settlement, which released him from liability.
Her withdrawal was described in a joint court filing last month as ‘a compromise’ that should not be viewed as an admission by either party of the validity or invalidity of the claims about the settlement agreement. Mr Dershowitz has lodged a request with the Manhattan court dealing with the action against Andrew to have the original agreement unsealed, as he believes it may help to get the case against the prince thrown out.
The Harvard law professor said yesterday: ‘We strongly suspect that Virginia and her lawyers may have committed fraud on the court by filing a lawsuit against Prince Andrew after dismissing the battery case against me.
‘The same reasons for dismissing the case against me seem to apply to Prince Andrew. These documents should get the charges against Prince Andrew thrown out. It’s an airtight defence for Prince Andrew and a potential fraud on the court.’
Prince Andrew with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson leaving Windsor to drive to the Queen’s Balmoral estate in Scotland Wednesday
Prince Andrew walking with Jeffrey Epstein in Central Park, New York City in 2011 after the friends left Epstein’s home in Manhattan
But Miss Roberts’ lawyer, David Boies, has said there was ‘no evidence Prince Andrew was intended to be covered by the release’.
Mr Boies said he was unable to comment on the details of her settlement with Epstein, citing its confidentiality, but added: ‘What I can say is that there is no evidence that Prince Andrew was intended to be covered by the release.
‘And, indeed, Prince Andrew has never himself asserted that he was intended to be covered by the release.’
In a letter obtained by ABC News in the US, Mr Bloxsome described the methods used by Miss Roberts’ legal team as ‘objectionable’.
In correspondence with a judge, he said: ‘They have made several public, indeed well-publicised, attempts at irregular service of these proceedings in this jurisdiction, in at least one case accompanied by a media representative.’
Mr Bloxsome maintained that under British law, a valid request for assistance from UK court officials must come from a judicial or diplomatic officer in the US.
US district judge Kaplan must now decide whether Andrew has been officially served. If he does, the prince will be given a deadline to respond.
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