Increased pressure on the King to meet survivors of Jeffrey Epstein risks overshadowing the monarch’s upcoming state visit to the US.
Charles and Queen Camilla will travel to Washington to meet Donald Trump and the First Lady, Melania, at a crucial and tense time for UK-US relations.
The King and Queen, who have publicly expressed solidarity with sex abuse victims, have no plans to meet survivors of Epstein’s sex trafficking while they are in the US, despite public calls to do so.
Even without any formal meeting, the topic – and the embroilment of the King’s brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in the scandal – threatens to overshadow the visit.
Buckingham Palace argues the King’s constitutional position and police inquiries into Mountbatten-Windsor make a meeting with victims legally impossible.
Victims will continue to try and meet the King
Ro Khanna, the US Congressman who wrote to the King requesting that he meet Epstein victims, has vowed to press ahead with attempts to arrange a meeting regardless.
Khanna told The i Paper: “We will continue to pursue our request through the British ambassador that the King meet with survivors as they requested. What has compromised the investigation into former Prince Andrew is the unacceptable silence of the Royal Family for decades. Meeting with the survivors, far from interfering with law enforcement, would begin to make amends. This is a matter of credibility for the Royal Family and a defining moment.”
It is understood that Palace officials believe the monarch’s constitutional position as the ultimate source of judicial authority, and the fact that his brother is facing police inquiries over his links to Epstein that could involve Palace officials being questioned, make it legally impossible.
The Palace believes it would not be possible for a meeting to take place without a serious risk of prejudicing any future proceedings.
There is a risk that members of Congress, angry with what they believe has been the Trump administration’s mishandling of the issue, disrupt the King’s planned address if he continues to refuse a meeting.
Added to this is the possibility that US media reporters could shout questions at the King.
‘A lot of anger in Congress’
Andrew Gawthorpe, lecturer and Foreign Policy Centre senior fellow, said there is “a lot of anger in parts of the US Congress about the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein scandal, so I think in Congress there might be some fear of disruption around that”.
Professor Andrew Moran, head of politics and international relations at London Metropolitan University, said any mention would be a problem for both the monarch and Trump.
As a result he suggested the US President would want to keep the case off the agenda as much as the Palace.
But he added: “There are members of Congress who are demanding that Charles meets with some of the survivors. There are others who are requesting there’s some sort of statement from him. So they’re going to have to be very careful in how they deal with this, because it’s not going to go away.”
Gloria Allred, an American lawyer who represents 27 Epstein victims, has said she does not understand the thinking behind the royal couple’s refusal to meet the survivors.
“I represent a number of Epstein survivors and all I can say is I don’t understand why he can’t meet with them,” she told GB News.
King ‘strongly’ urged to meet with survivors
Craig Prescott, a constitutional expert and law lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, pointed out that the King met survivors of the Southport mass stabbings in 2024 long before the killer, Axel Rudakubana, was convicted. And in 2017 Queen Elizabeth visited survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing before the case went to trial.
But Mountbatten-Windsor is the King’s brother and has denied any wrongdoing.
Prescott conceded that the Epstein case was closer to home for the King and Queen. “There’s a grain of truth to it, but it’s a convenient excuse,” he said.
Earlier this week, Sir Keir Starmer declined to say whether he believes the King should meet the victims of the convicted paedophile financier.
Starmer declined to say whether there was a “moral case” for the King to meet the victims when asked by reporters at a press conference on Wednesday.
The Prime Minister instead insisted the “focus of the visit” will be on the 250th anniversary of American independence.
The family of Virginia Giuffre, who made allegations against MountBatten-Windsor, “strongly” urged the King to meet with survivors.
In a statement to BBC Newsnight on Tuesday, they said they were “hopeful that conversation with survivors and their families will continue to elicit decisive action from the British Government against the co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein”.
“We strongly urge King Charles to meet with us and survivors and hear what we have to say. We are thankful to him for heeding our sister’s allegations against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and for his decisive action in stripping his brother from his position as a prince.”
Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, accused the former prince of sexual abuse, which he denies.
The former duke of York and Peter Mandelson, the former UK ambassador to the US, were arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office over their connections with Epstein. They have since been released under investigation.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
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