Prince Andrew and a Right Royal Mess

"The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us."

I wonder if these words of Shakespeare, voiced by Edgar in Act 5, Scene 3 of "King Lear", were going through the minds of the two men in the photograph. They are of course, the disgraced paedophile financier, Jeffery Epstein, now deceased, and our very own Prince Andrew who, if not disgraced, is pretty heavily tarnished by his association with Epstein. 

Interestingly, in 2019, the prince's legal team denied the authenticity of the photograph above. It was taken in 2010, when the ex-HRH was visiting Epstein, after the financier had been convicted of sex offences. Andrew's ludicrous explanation for this was that he had gone to privately tell Epstein that they could not be pals any more. Presumably, the prince finds emailing difficult. Also, if you don't want to be associated with a sex offender, it's not a good idea to walk with them in a public park in New York City. The accusation that the photo was falsified was scornfully refuted by the journalist who broke the story. The Daily Mail, at the time, said:

"... that suggestion was last night dismissed as ‘preposterous’ by freelance reporter Annette Witheridge, who was with photographer Jae Donnelly on the day the picture was taken."

Now, as we know, this is not the only photo pertinent to this affair that the prince's team have described as faked, but we'll come to that later.

Prince Andrew has said today that he is willing to face a jury trial over his alleged sexual misdemeanours with Virginia Giuffre, nee Roberts, seen below.

Well, if Prince Andrew performs as badly in court, here or in the USA, as he did in his notorious interview with Emily Maitlis, then he'd better be ready to lose. In the interview, he exhibited some strange mannerisms and highly suspicious memory loss, as well as tripping himself up on a number of facts.He described Epstein as a friend at one point, then said he didn't know him that well - but he trusted him (!). At another point, he said that he never saw any girls in Epstein's New York house, then, later in the interview, he said he thought they were staff. When asked by Maitlis why he spent four days in Epstein's house in 2010, after Eptsein had been convicted of sex offences, he said that it was "convenient" (!) and had only gone there to break off friendly relations with Epstein. Besides this being a stupid thing to do - anyone with any sense would break off all contact with a sex offender at once - witnesses say that Andrew's four day stay coincided with a house party. Strangely, the Prince says he never saw it.

As for the allegation that he had sex 3 times with the then underage Virginia Roberts/Giuffre and danced with her in a London club (Tramps), where he was alleged to have  sweated profusely, he tried to make a peculiar refutation. Besides saying that he doesn't dance, he claimed that at the the time, he was unable to sweat, which is a far-fetched claim to make. The condition, he said, had lasted from his service in the Falklands War, 1981, caused by an excess of adrenalin, to his dancing in the club in 2001. This is suspicious indeed, as the condition, known as Anhidrosis, is usually a genetic condition. From what I have read, there is no evidence that it can be caused by excess adrenalin. Besides, there is said to be no known cure, and the prince has been photographed sweating since 2001. He also claimed to have taken his children to a Pizza Express in Woking on the day he was allegedly seen dancing in Tramps.. He said that this was unusual for him. So unusual, in fact, that the local press never noticed.

Andrew was vague when questioned about having sex with Ms Giuffre in Epstein's houses, although he denies any sexual contact took place; it's not the sort of thing you'd forget, one way or another. He was conspicuously defensive and totally lacking in empathy for Epstein's victims. Incredibly, it is said that Andrew thinks he did a good job in the interview; only 6% of the public agree. As I said, the prince will be worth watching under cross-examination.

As for Andrew's declaring his intention to face a jury trial, the Daily Mail comments:

"Royal expert and former MP Norman Baker said Buckingham Palace ‘won’t like’ what could come out at trial, warning: ‘This is going to be very damaging’.

It can fairly be said: a lot of innocent young girls are already damaged. They seem to have been forgotten in this whole murky affair, victims of Prince Andrew's deniable friend, Epstein. As the comedian, Josh Widdecombe, has said, Season 8 of The Crown should be riveting.

As said earlier, there is another photo, of the prince and Virginia Giuffre (then Roberts), that, yet again, the prince and his acolytes claim is falsified. The prince said that it is impossible to prove the photo has been doctored, as it is "a photograph of a photograph". I'll finish by saying that the photo below certainly is a fake.

Robert Maxwell - Perpetrator and Victim

 

For Christmas, a friend of mine sent me the book in the photo above: "The Fall", by John Preston. It is a biography of Robert Maxwell, who has been written about before, but this book has won the Costa Book prize for biography. I haven't read the other biographies of Maxwell, but I endorse the view of Melanie MacDonagh in the Evening Standard that this book reads like a novel and, unlike many biographies, is an entertaining read. It is sometimes short on context details, but is a good account of the turbulent life of its subject, and I have learned a good deal about this man who built up an empire, but died in mysterious circumstances and did not live to see his empire come crashing down.

Posterity has not been kind to Maxwell. Rupert Murdoch, known to Private Eye readers as "The Dirty Digger", said of his business rival: "He was a total buffoon really". Conrad Black, erstwhile Daily Telegraph owner, described Maxwell rather differently, if equally as unkindly. He described Maxwell thus: "Maxwell is a crook, a thief, a buffoon and probably a KGB man".   Private Eye readers will not be surprised to learn that Rupert Murdoch claims he said this. Whoever said it originally, it is an interesting description; thieves are crooks and the KGB had no use for simple buffoons.

While the book has the pace of a novel, it throws up a picture of a man who was perhaps more complex than the crook and the spy that Murdoch and Black dismiss with such contempt. This does not mean that their charges are without foundation; simply that there could be a deeper, underlying explanation of Maxwell's actions. John Preston has done a first-rate job in pointing to Maxwell's humble origins and early life experiences as underpinning his actions and behaviour in later life. 

Maxwell was born into a poor Jewish family in Czechoslovakia on June 10, 1923. In later years, he spoke little about his childhood, but it had a lasting effect upon him, as childhood does for all of us. Maxwell was one of nine children; he himself went on to have nine children. He sometimes spoke of being hungry as a child; when older and richer, he ate gluttonously, weighing 22 stone towars the end of his life. His father, Mehel Hoch, inflicted numerous beatings upon his children. As Preston says:

"Mehel Hoch beat his son on a regular basis - often so hard that he broke his skin"

Preston gives examples of Robert beating his children with a belt when they were younger, and he describes how hard Maxwell could be on them when they were older and worked for him. One example given by Preston is of how Maxwell fired his son, Ian, for failing to collect his father from Orly Airport in Paris in the summer of 1980. Not as brutal as a beating, but an insight into perhaps an inherited attitude to offspring.

One very strange aspect of Maxwell's psyche, which Preston highlights in the book, was Maxwell's readiness to change his name, which he did on a number of occasions. Leaving his Czech home at the age of 16, he assumed several new identities before joining the British Army as Jan Hoch. Having learned English, he transferred to the infantry from the Pioneer Corps. Had he been captured by the Germans, they would have realised from his name that he was Jewish. It was as well for him , then, that he was given a paybook with he name of Leslie Smith. After he had distinguished himself in combat, a Canadian radio broadcast named him as "Leslie Du Maurier". In response to this, his CO gave him a paybook with the name Jones. He became "Robert Maxwell" in late 1944, after becoming a 2nd Lieutenant, because, Preston comments: "...it sounded distinguished and vaguely Scottish". Later in life, one of his surviving sisters, Sylvia asked him, "Why do you always say your name was Jan Ludvik Hoch?". Preston continues:

""...your name is Ludvik. You were named after Uncle Ludvik, not Jan".

Maxwell looked at her in astonishment.

"Was I?", he said."

One thing that even the most hostile of Maxwell's critics would acknowledge was his courage during his military service in Europe in WW2. As a sergeant, he was awarded the Military Cross for leading the rescue of a trapped British platoon. The day before he was awarded the MC, Maxwell learned that his mother and sister had been murdered by the Nazis. This might have led to two incidents, one corroborated, one alleged, where Maxwell personally killed one unarmed German civilian and a group of German soldiers trying to surrender. Again, these actions, if true, are wrong - but understandable.

Postwar, Maxwell set about creating a business empire, based on his purchase of a scientific book publisher which he rechristened Pergamon Press. While this empire grew, with all the trappings of success, together with links behind the Iron Curtain, he engaged in a newspaper war with Rupert Murdoch. As Ian Jack says in The Guardian: 

"Newspapers fascinated Maxwell, as they do many egoists, but somehow Murdoch managed to outwit him whenever he tried to get his hands on a newspaper business. It happened with the News of the World, the Sun, Today, the Times and the Sunday Times".

  As Harold Evans said, quoted by Preston:

 “Maxwell thought he’d entered the ring with another boxer … In fact, he’d entered the ring with a ju-jitsu artist who also happened to be carrying a stiletto".

Maxwell was simply outclassed. In 1988, he paid over the odds for Macmillan US ($2.6bn) and the Official Aviation Guide ($750m). Spending recklessly, he bought the failing New York Daily News, which all pundits agreed, was a waste of money. To raise funds, he borrowed from 44 banks and financial syndicates.

As the years went by, Maxwell became increasingly unkind to his family, absenting himself from home and indulging in extra-marital affairs. His French Protestant wife, Betty (another of Maxwell's biographers), endured much heartache. As Duncan Campbell says:

"There were nine Maxwell children, two of whom, Michael and Karine, died young in tragic circumstances. His treatment of the rest of the family was shocking. Betty would be told to “fuck off” in front of guests".

The end, when it came, is well enough known. The banks called in their loans and Maxwell’s share price needed bolstering. Maxwell sold of his assets, including Pergamon publishing, the foundation of his business from the outset. Eventually, his only, desperate, solution was to rob the Mirror pension fund and, when he knew that was about to be detected, to jump into the sea from the deck of his yacht, November 5th, 1991. In the book, Preston examines Maxwell's death in detail, but comes down in favour of suicide or accident. But there was one person who thought that Maxwell was murdered...

Maxwell's 9th child, Ghislaine, was of the opinion that her father had been pushed, rather than fallen to his death. As we know only too well, Ghislaine has had her fair share of legal problems - in fact, she is a convicted criminal. Preston says that Ghislaine was her father's favourite, and there is speculation that her attraction to the late Jeffrey Epstein was because he reminded her in many ways of her father.

But that is just speculation. In my parting nod to John Preston's book, I find one passage that I think significant. In Chapter 30, he describes how Ian Maxwell found his father bending down with his nose almost touching the screen of his television. The programme on the TV showed a trainload of Jews arriving at Auschwitz.

"What are you doing?" Ian asked.

Slowly Maxwell straightened up, and then turned around.

"I'm looking to see if I can spot my parents", he told him."

Let me be clear: I totally condemn Maxwell's wrongdoing. His sharp business practices, his bullying of his children and employees, his abuse and neglect of his wife, his robbing of money from his employees' pension fund, his supposed KGB links and his lies are all inexcusable. But I think that the memory of what happened in his youth and the loss of seven siblings and his parents must have eaten away at him, and the trauma of their loss might help to explain his actions. For this reason, then, I see Robert Maxwell as both a perpetrator and a victim.