Suzanne Harrington: Is being thrown off the gravy train a harsh enough punishment?

Purely to protect the continued existence of the Firm, Andrew-Formerly-Known-As-Prince's brother and nephew have thrown him not quite under the bus, but off the gravy train

Stripping someone of titles is not the same as stripping them of freedom.

You've probably been following the Andrew-Formerly-Known-As-Prince saga. 

What else will be revealed — a network of sex dungeons in the basement of that free mansion he and his grifting ex-missus shared for all those decades? A vault of concubines under Woking Pizza Express? A puppy farm? A meth lab? 

It’s as if someone’s spiked Hello! magazine with DMT.

You’d imagine that Andrew Lownie, the historian whose recent book Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York examines the escapades of the AFKAP in some detail, is in a state of advanced delirium.

Having spent four years being blocked by civil servants while trying to access information on his subject, who subsequently sent threatening legal letters to Lownie’s publishers before he’d ever written a word, then warned everyone in the extended royal circle not to speak with him (Lownie approached more than 3,000 individuals for comment, eliciting responses from fewer than a 10th), and had the British foreign office order ambassadors to keep schtum, recent events have rather blown the doors off.

What glorious timing. Even if you have never read a royal biog in your life — and why would you? — you might find yourself compulsively loading this one on to your Kindle, squirrelling it away for a delicious deep-dive on a rainy afternoon.

Lownie’s own description of the story is that of “a popular couple” — he means Andrew and Fergie, in case you were confused by the word ‘popular’ — who “fell from grace” not just because they were awful people but because “they were allowed to leverage their privileged position as royals for personal gain with the connivance of the institution itself”.

This is the crux. Not that the subject of Entitled is an awful person — we knew that.

A street sign for Prince Andrew Park in south Belfast. Calls to change place names and street signs named after Prince Andrew have intensified, after he was stripped of his title. Picture: PA/PA Wire

Remember Koo Stark? In a moment of art — I use the term loosely — foreshadowing life, the soft-porn actress Andrew dated before Fergie played a 17-year-old schoolgirl called Emily, pursued by a bunch of adult sexual predators. How fitting then for Koo to date a sweaty nonce in real life.

No, what’s so deeply wrong with all of this is how so many people covered for him, propped him up, bailed him, excused him, lied for him for so long. For decades. Until finally, purely to protect the continued existence of The Firm, his brother and nephew have thrown him not quite under the bus but off the gravy train.

But here’s the puzzling thing. Usually, when someone is accused of serious sex offences involving trafficked minors, they don’t get sent to a private estate where they can live a life of comfort and luxury — they get sent to prison.

They face criminal charges in a court of law rather than what poet Michael Rosen terms “a brilliantly managed bit of tutting” from an older brother. They get banged up.

Being ordered to change how your name appears on an envelope from HRH to Mister is not an appropriate response to accusations of sex offending. Neither is being given another free house on a country estate.

Stripping someone of titles is not the same as stripping them of freedom. 

Making someone ‘common’ is not the same as making them serve time in jail.

Why has this predator not been put on trial for sex offences? 

In France, if not already beheaded, he’d be in a cell next to the odious Sarkozy, whose crimes of corruption pale in comparison with what the royal nonce is accused of. 

And yet he carries on, free and rich and unaccountable.