'Andrew still has a lot to give': Duke wants return to public life
‘Andrew still has a lot to give’: Disgraced duke STILL wants to return to public life, insist friends, who say he ‘CAN be rehabilitated’ despite £12million rape case payout to Virginia Roberts
- Prince Andrew still wants to return to role in public life, royal insiders have said
- Some claim the disgraced royal ‘has a lot to give to people who will let him give’
- It comes after his high-profile appearance at Prince Phillip’s memorial service
Prince Andrew still has ambitions of returning to public life even after the furious fallout from his remarkable stunt at Prince Philip’s memorial and his £12million rape case payout to accuser Virginia Roberts, it has been claimed.
Sources close to the disgraced duke insisted last night that he ‘still has a lot to give to people who will let him’ despite sparking a massive backlash when he escorted his mother the Queen down Westminster Abbey last month.
Andrew’s reputation already lay in ruins after he paid Jeffrey Epstein ‘sex slave’ Virginia Roberts Giuffre a reported £12million to settle allegations of sexual abuse out of court – allegations that he always denied.
But the duke sparked yet more controversy days by issuing a now-deleted 700-word statement about the Falklands War that was signed off as ‘HRH’, despite Buckingham Palace saying he would no longer use the title.
Aides told The Times that the duke was taken aback by the level of hostility to the post, and is now trying to carve out a new role in public life once again in the belief he still has more to offer.
However, another royal insider says the duke’s potential comeback is not likely given Prince Charles’ stance, who is ‘less sympathetic’ to circumstances regarding his role in the public eye.
Following his high-profile public appearance at Prince Philip’s memorial service, some insiders say Prince Andrew ‘can still do a lot of good’
Andrew still wants to return to public life and ‘his belief that he can be of service remains undimmed’, sources close to him have said
‘He [Andrew] is clearly in an awful place. If you read it (the Instagram post), it was incredibly personal, and incredibly thoughtful’, a source close to the Duke of York told the newspaper.
‘Even the reaction to that…here he was as a veteran sharing something deeply personal on this important anniversary – it was surprising that it couldn’t be read as what it was.
‘There are rightfully some questions of him but there is rarely a balanced judgment of him in the media. He has a lot to give to people who will let him give.’
The duke, 62, wrote more than 700 words about his experience in the Falklands in posts on his ex-wife’s Instagram account on Saturday – before they were hurriedly taken down.
Andrew flew missions as a Sea King helicopter pilot during the conflict and recalled being shot at. But Buckingham Palace and the duke’s aides were unaware he had published the posts, it was claimed.
The musings were initially signed off as ‘written by HRH The Duke of York’, despite the Queen having stripped Andrew of his honorary military titles in January following the dramatic fallout from his civil sex case.
At the time, a royal source said Andrew, who was born a HRH, would no longer use it in any official capacity.
The ‘HRH’ was removed from the posts, before the reflection was deleted in its entirety two hours later.
Andrew denied being a close friend of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in a legal response to Virginia Giuffre, to whom he paid £12million to settle a US civil sexual assault case
In the first Instagram post, Sarah wrote: ‘I asked Andrew this morning for his reflections on the anniversary of his sailing from Portsmouth to the Falkland Islands 40 years ago.’
Andrew’s account began: ‘As I sit here at my desk on this cold crisp spring morning thinking back to April 1982 I’ve tried to think what was going through my mind as we sailed out of Portsmouth lining the flight deck of HMS INVINCIBLE.’
It concluded: ‘So whilst I think back to a day when a young man went to war, full of bravado, I returned a changed man.
‘I put away childish things and false bravado and returned a man full in the knowledge of human frailty and suffering.
‘My reflection makes me think even harder and pray even more fervently for those in conflict today, for those family’s (sic) torn apart by the horrors they have witnessed.
‘And, i’m (sic) afraid to say, that the historical perspective my short war has taught me is this – war is failure to keep peace; war is failure of human judgement; war is failure to recognise we need to seek permission to understand another persons perspective or reality, whether or not we agree or disagree with that perspective or reality.’
Andrew also recalled being shot at, writing: ‘I was flying and saw a chaff shell fired from one of our ships that passed not that far in front of us.
‘For a moment it was on a steady bearing before it began to cross to our left.
‘The terror that that was going to be that, just for a moment, has had a lasting and permanent effect on me.’
Source: Read Full Article