Suzanne Harrington: 'It’d almost make you sweat — if you could'

Twelve million quid plus a “substantial” donation to a charity seems rather a lot to give a woman you have never met, doesn’t it? Far easier to give away that kind of cash to a random when Mummy is footing the bill. Good old Mummy. She paid the lawyers too. What would one do without her?

Of course they did their best, the lawyers. Just last October they said how the woman you never met had “initiated this baseless lawsuit” against you “to achieve another payday” at your expense and at the expense of those closest to you. And yet this dreadful woman refused to go away. Oh dear. Poor Mummy. She’ll have RSI from all the cheque writing.

"Most people could only dream of obtaining the sums of money that [the woman you have never met] has secured for herself over the years,” concluded your lawyers. If only you could remember anything about her. All you can remember is pizza.

It’s so terribly hard being a prince. All these shameless peasants having the temerity to come after you, banging on about how you allegedly forced them to have sex with you when they were still minors. It’d almost make you sweat, if only you could. Still, at least they’re calling it forced sex — rape is so unprincely. So common.

You rather approve of the judge who in 2015 called the initial claims of the woman you never met “impertinent”. That was more like it — a privileged man protecting the privilege of even more privileged men. Rotten luck that old Jeffers got caught out in the end. The cheek of these hussies, objecting to being lucky enough to have forced sex — not rape, that’s for the proles — with chaps like you. Rich, princely types — you’d have thought it would be a dream come true for them. Theoretically speaking, of course; you have no recollection of meeting any of them.

Even that photo of you with your arm around whoever she is, in the flat of whatshername, still can’t jog your memory. Probably a fake, except whatshername says it’s real. Good thing she’s in prison now — best place for her. You won’t be going there ever, though — Mummy will make sure of that. That would be too, too hideous. Ugh.

Better to knock out a statement instead to make it all go away, no matter how much it sticks in your throat. You’d make a fellatio joke here about sticking in throats, but Mummy and the lawyers might find it in poor taste, so you’d better just say something po-faced instead.

Something about never intending to malign the character of the woman you have never met, about how she has suffered as an established victim of sexual abuse — although not by you, having never met her — and how your defence campaign may have made things worse for her “as a result of unfair public attacks”.

Oh, and get Mummy to bung her a cheque. Or however one pays off the plebs these days. PayPal?