Part of the reason I’d always been sympathetic to Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie was that they seemed sensible and level-headed whenever I met them at London parties.
It struck me as unfair for them to be tainted by the failings of their parents, the former Duke and Duchess of York.
However, the more I read of the three million documents in the Jeffrey Epstein files, the more disturbed I am by how much they knew about the late sex offender and how little they did about it.
After Prince Andrew’s disastrous interview at Buckingham Palace with BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis in 2019, it was reported that Beatrice had advised her father to take part.
Indeed, she was said to have attended a meeting at the palace with the BBC producers who persuaded Andrew to agree.
Then, I found it hard to believe that Bea, as she’s known to friends, could have been involved because it was such a foolish decision.
But when it was confirmed to be the case, I persuaded myself that she must have done so out of a touching belief in the innocence of her father, and that she must have been desperate for him to convince the nation he had been involved in no wrongdoing just as he had clearly convinced her.
Now, I am not so sure.
Princess Beatrice with her father, then Prince Andrew and Duke of York, in 2016
The late American paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019
Princess Beatrice, right, with her mother Sarah Ferguson and sister Princess Eugenie
First, it was revealed that the princess, then aged 20, joined her sister and mother on a visit to Miami in 2009 to visit Epstein less than a week after he was released from prison.
The American financier was under house arrest at the time, having served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for procuring a child for prostitution after a parent reported that he had sexually abused her 14-year-old daughter. Epstein had pleaded guilty to the revolting crime.
Two days after he walked free from jail, Epstein gave permission for the mother and daughters’ airline tickets to be purchased for a total of $14,000 (£10,000).
The emails suggest that they joined the newly released convict for lunch, where the porridge served at Palm Beach County Penitentiary – where he had spent the previous year – must surely have been part of the discussion.
The Epstein files show extensive contact between Epstein and Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew from then onwards. The following year, Andrew went to stay with Epstein at his New York apartment.
In his Newsnight interview, Andrew told Maitlis that he went there only to inform Epstein that he would be having nothing more to do with him. However, emails from the Epstein files show that this was a lie.
In fact, their creepy contact continued for years.
I believe that Beatrice knew her father had lied when he said this. The fact that she had accompanied her mother to celebrate the sex offender’s release shows that her parents had no intention of cutting ties with him. Quite the opposite: they hoped to continue benefiting from his generosity.
Princes Beatrice with Sarah in 2024, a year before the Duchess of York lost her title
Beatrice, Eugenie and Sarah in Spain in 2008, the year before the visit to Epstein in Miami
It is time for the sisters to speak out about what they know, Richard Eden argues
Surely Eugenie too must have been aware of the true position. That jolly trip to Florida is not, moreover, the only disclosure in the files that has persuaded me Beatrice and Eugenie knew their father told a pack of lies to the nation from the palace.
It has now been disclosed that Beatrice helped advise her mother on how to backtrack publicly when Sarah upset Epstein by calling him a paedophile.
Fergie said in an email that her elder daughter, then 22, agreed with her that it was ‘important’ to brief the Press that Epstein had ‘done his penance’ in prison for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.
She said Beatrice was present when she called a journalist in 2011 to say it was ‘wrong’ to call Epstein a sex offender because he was now ‘moving on with his life’, newly unearthed emails show. ‘Beatrice and I had a discussion, and we agreed it was important,’ she wrote.
If one assumes that what Fergie says is true then, far from having cut ties with Epstein, Fergie and Beatrice were conspiring on how to create positive public relations for the convicted criminal.
Having defended Beatrice and Eugenie for so many years, I feel guilty for having acted as one of their media cheerleaders.
I fear they have betrayed my trust and betrayed the nation for allowing, or even encouraging, their father to lie to the nation.
It is time for the sisters to speak out about what they know and order their father to start telling the truth, to the police and to the authorities in the USA.
And time for our head of state, King Charles, to cut off all funding to his greedy, lying brother until he does so.