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UK government, public and Giuffre family welcome Andrew’s fall from royal status

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yesterday

LONDON (AP) — British politicians, the public and the family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre on Friday praised King Charles III’s decision to strip his brother Andrew of his princely title and spacious home, a banishment that has left the disgraced royal increasingly exposed to political and legal scrutiny over his finances and his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The king acted to stem mounting public disapproval as damning new details emerged about Andrew’s relationship with the convicted sex offender. Charles moved to preserve the monarchy from the fallout by forcibly removing a British prince’s title for the first time in a century.

Julian Payne, a former communications secretary to the king and queen, said that, as the scandal around 65-year-old Andrew grew and grew, the royal family had decided that “a tipping point had been reached.”

The former Prince Andrew is now known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. As of Friday, he was no longer listed on the roll of the peerage, where he had previously appeared as Duke of York, another of his titles.

He also will move out of Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion near Windsor Castle where he has lived for more than 20 years, and into a more remote home funded by his brother on the king’s 20,000-acre Sandringham Estate in eastern England.

Buckingham Palace said Andrew had been served notice to surrender his lease and would move “as soon as practicable,” though that is not expected to be until after Christmas — when the whole family usually gathers at Sandringham.

Sandringham locals were not overjoyed about their soon-to-be neighbor.

“Well, he’s got to go somewhere. It is what it is, isn’t it?” said Vanessa Beech. She said the king had “most certainly” made the right decision about Andrew.

The British government, which was consulted but not directly involved, welcomed the king’s decision.

“I think........

© The Times of Israel