Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was ‘considering abdication’ after he was caught on camera strolling in New York’s Central Park with convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, an email reveals.
The then-duke was so ‘sad’ he felt ‘like a zoo animal’ – and the Queen had told him to ‘get a job’, Epstein was informed by a mutual friend.
After the now infamous photo was published in February 2011, the friend said she had visited Andrew and ‘S’ – believed to be Sarah Ferguson.
She told the paedophile in May that year: ‘A’ is sad and frustrated. Considering abdication but he’s like a zoo animal, no way now for him to thrive.’ She added: ‘Queen said np royal list (sic), get a job’.
The friend, the email states, had taken her dirty washing to be done at the now-former Yorks’ home. She told Epstein: ‘I hope that wasn’t rude. A said yes, but S wasn’t amused. I needed yoga clothes.’
But Epstein warned her: ‘Careful – there is a Daily Mail rat, close to him, not her. He is unaware.’
When she asked: ‘One of his staff? Who or where is the rat?,’ the pair speculated about a young valet who had allegedly felt that Andrew was ‘abusing’ his privilege.
The email emerged among three million pages of documents released by the US Department of Justice on Friday following a drawn-out battle over the ‘Epstein Files’.
In another email, Sarah, formerly the Duchess of York, told Epstein: ‘No woman has ever left the Royal Family with her head – and they cannot behead me, therefore they will discredit me.’
She ranted in the July 2010 email – after the News of the World had caught her trying to sell access to Andrew for £500,000 – that she was ‘on her own’ and the palace was ‘not equipped’ to help her.
Ms Ferguson took money from Epstein to pay off some of her debts and other emails show her regularly corresponding with the paedophile financier, including a plea to ‘marry me’.
As the furore mounted on Tuesday, Prince Edward became the first member of the Royal Family to publicly address Andrew’s role – stressing it was ‘really important to remember the victims’.
The Duke of Edinburgh was taking part in a press Q&A at the World Governments Summit in Dubai when he was asked about the King and Queen’s response to the issue.
Last October Charles and Camilla became the first senior royals to publicly voice their support for the many victims of the prolific paedophile, saying: ‘Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.’
Andrew has never voiced any sympathy for the victims of his friend’s crimes and is said to have even refused to sign off press statements that expressed even the broadest of support for the victims of abuse.
Highlighting how ‘difficult’ and ‘close to home’ the latest release of Epstein files has been for the Royal Family, reporter Eleni Giokos asked King Charles’s youngest brother how they were ‘coping with that’.
Although he began by suggesting the audience might not be ‘the least bit interested’ in the issue given that they were there to discuss education policy, Edward, 61, went on: ‘I think it’s all really important always to remember the victims and who are the victims in all of this.’
On Tuesday, the Daily Mail revealed that royal sources believe that ‘providing testimony [to the ongoing inquiry by the US Congress] is now a matter for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his conscience’.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment further.
