Money might buy Prince Andrew peace – but it shouldn’t

I don’t blame victims who take the settlement just to get some sense of normality back in their lives. I blame the system that still allows power and money to trump truth and change

Prepare yourself for a week of people slamming Giuffre for taking a settlement (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Prince Andrew was due to give evidence under oath in the civil case brought by Virginia Giuffre in a fortnight. This is a man who has previously stated that he was determined to clear his name against allegations that he benefited sexually from the child sex trafficking of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Who can blame him? It is, of course, right that he is innocent until proven guilty, and had I been accused of such a thing, I would want my innocence proved too. I would want, as Prince Andrew attempted to do in his now-infamous Newsnight interview, to clear my name. I like to think that had it been me in his situation, I wouldn’t have had to be reminded awkwardly at the end of the interview to be remorseful for carrying on a friendship with a convicted child sex trafficker. I think I might have led with that, if I had been more worried about the heinous crimes that occurred than my own reputation. Horses for courses, I guess.

The differences between Windsor and myself are, of course, plentiful. I don’t have many millions to splash in order to avoid giving evidence against allegations, for example. Most people don’t. In fact, most people in the UK have a dwindling access to justice. No doubt the Duke of York will be taking to the airwaves to campaign for a better justice system in the UK for both victims and the accused, any day now.

Prepare yourself for a week of people slamming Giuffre for taking a settlement. She is going to be cast as money-grabbing, even though it is clear that she is going to use her money to fund charities working with victims of sex trafficking. Already there is a creeping tone that somehow, her taking the settlement is denying us something we all wanted to see. What people mean by that is that they were enjoying the circus. Prince Andrew was never going to go to prison because this was not a criminal case, and if people think that is an injustice, I suggest they take it up with law enforcement, both here and in the US. It is not Giuffre’s responsibility.

Further to that, Giuffre does not owe us our idea of justice. She, by Prince Andrew’s own admission in his carefully crafted statement, is a victim of child sex abuse. She bravely spoke up about the most powerful paedophile grooming ring in our history. She spoke up while Prince Andrew was walking through Central Park having a nice weekend break with the convicted sex trafficker.

I am no fan of rich people using the power and money of organisations and companies that we, the British people, fund with our taxes or as consumers, in order to silence people. I have spent the weekend reading the non-disclosure agreements of various women who have been silenced by people with power and money, and it stinks. I don’t blame the victims of maternity discrimination, bullying or sexual violence who take the settlement just to get some sense of normality back in their lives. I blame the system that still allows power and money to trump truth and change.

Follow the latest updates on Prince Andrew’s settlement

Such non-disclosure settlements are pernicious because they silence victims of heinous abuses and do nothing to change the culture of organisations. However, in the case of the Giuffre settlement, she has not been silenced, because she has already told her story. That cannot be taken away. The question this settlement leaves me with is not why would she take it, but rather, why would Prince Andrew agree to it?

Court cases in cases of sexual abuse are famously difficult to prove; it is hardly a battle that favours the accuser rather than the accused. Have a look at rape charging and conviction in the UK – 74 out of 75 cases end with no action being taken against the accused.

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In his settlement statement, Prince Andrew stated that he “never intended to malign Ms Giuffre’s character” and that he recognised she had “suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks”. Well, his lawyers trying to paint her as a “sex kitten” was obviously just a blip. When they said she was just out for another “payday”, are we to now assume he wasn’t intending to malign her character?

Prince Andrew is now saying that he wishes to work to help the victims of sex trafficking. Well, I suggest he starts by reading the Modern Slavery Act, a bill passed in to law by our royal head of state. Section 45 of the act makes it very clear that victims of trafficking will often be forced, as part of their abuse, to undertake illegal behaviour and that they should be reserved from judgement. Prince Andrew’s legal team didn’t seem to think of this when they tried to accuse Giuffre of criminality. I might suggest that Prince Andrew has a considerable amount of reading to do before he begins his crusade on behalf of victims, because to date, his track reckon looks extremely poor.

As someone who works directly with the victims of sex trafficking and child grooming gangs in the UK, I cannot imagine that Prince Andrew will be welcomed with open arms by the sector. I don’t expect we will want to lean on his voice in the battle to change the fact, for example, that in 2020, more children were identified as potential trafficking victims in the UK than ever before. Perhaps Prince Andrew is on the phone to the prime minister right now to ask him to explain our government’s woeful record. Perhaps not.

We might be dissatisfied with the outcome of a settlement, but both parties did what was best for them. One got to get on with her life after a childhood of rape and trafficking. Another wanted the story to go away.

Jess Phillips is the shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding and Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley