Prince Andrew has finally been served legal papers over a civil case for rape and sexual assault.
They were accepted by the security chief at his Windsor home after weeks of ‘avoiding’ officials, court documents dramatically revealed.
It appeared last night however that Andrew’s lawyers claim the papers were not properly served and plan to boycott Monday’s court hearing into the accusations lodged by Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Roberts.
The prince’s team also hopes to get the case thrown out on a technicality. In a legal filing, his solicitor Gary Bloxsome said the document Miss Roberts signed in 2009 may make her action invalid. It is the first indication of how the prince and his lawyers intend to fight the case after weeks of silence.
Yesterday a new affidavit was also lodged in New York from a London-based ‘corporate investigator and process server’, Cesar Augusto Sepulveda, who was employed to personally serve Andrew with court papers relating to the US action.
He records how he first went to Royal Lodge, Andrew’s Windsor mansion, on August 12 and was met by Metropolitan Police officers guarding the gate who told him they ‘could not raise anyone in charge’. They said they had been ‘instructed not to allow anyone attending there for the purpose of serving court process on the grounds of the property’. And they added that no documentation would be forwarded on, leaving the server with the strong impression they had been ‘primed’.
But Mr Sepulveda returned on August 27 and was told he could now leave his papers and they would be forwarded. In other court documents, Roberts’ lawyer David Boies detailed the extensive efforts they went to in order to serve Andrew.
