Prince Andrew's lawyers in crisis talks as Virginia Roberts vows to fight for ...

Prince Andrew was facing the biggest gamble of his life after a judge in the US unequivocally rejected a bid to have his sex abuse case thrown out of court.

Last night, the royal’s lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic were locked in crisis talks after their motion to dismiss the civil lawsuit brought by Virginia Roberts was ‘denied in all respects’, meaning the case is now heading towards an unedifying trial this autumn.

The duke’s team now have a stark choice, legal experts said. They can either take the risk to press ahead and attempt to clear his name by going in front of a jury, which means Andrew would face the humiliation of having to give public testimony against lurid allegations of rape and sexual assault on oath.

Or he could try to persuade Miss Roberts to accept a multi-million pound settlement in order to avoid further damaging the reputation of the monarchy – but have the stain of the proceedings remain with him forever. However, her New York attorney David Boies last night indicated that his client was determined to go to trial, saying: ‘She wants to achieve justice.’

One former US federal prosecutor said: ‘This is a very, very bad day for Prince Andrew.’

Mitchell Epner told Sky News: ‘There are only bad options in front of him and he has to decide which of these bad options is his best bad option.’

The pressure for Andrew to settle out of court and spare the Queen the ignominy of a sordid public trial was growing last night as he was warned he was in ‘the last chance saloon with the towels over the taps’.

Miss Roberts alleges she was forced to have sex with Andrew on three occasions in 2001, when she was 17, and he knew she was a trafficking victim.

She says she was offered up to the prince and other wealthy and powerful friends of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Andrew strongly denies the claims.

Yesterday, New York judge Lewis Caplan dismissed the duke’s application to have the case thrown out at an early stage. Andrew’s legal team had attempted to persuade the judge that Miss Roberts – bringing the case under her married name of Giuffre – had waived her right to sue any other ‘potential defendants’ when she agreed a £370,000 ($500,000) pay-off with Epstein in 2009.

They believed the wording of the agreement, and a reference in her original lawsuit to being sexually exploited by ‘royalty’, meant that the prince was protected from litigation.

Although his judgement ran to 44 pages, the judge said his task was a simple one, ‘to determine whether there are two or more reasonable interpretations’ of the Epstein deal.

When he found the wording was ‘ambiguous’, and so open to challenge, he said it was for a jury, and not him, to decide on its meaning. But he added that, in his opinion, the agreement ‘cannot be said’ to have ‘clearly and unambiguously’ been intended to benefit the duke.

The judge made no finding on the allegations against Andrew.

His decision means the proceedings move quickly to ‘discovery’, the unveiling of witnesses and key evidence. It also means the prince is now set to be put through an uncomfortable grilling by Miss Roberts’ attorneys, under oath and on video, about all aspects of his private life.

Spencer Kuvin, a lawyer representing nine of Epstein’s victims, warned that her legal team would be entitled to ‘ask any question they wanted to’.

The lawyer said: ‘The court is opening up the case for discovery which includes deposition [interview under oath] of Prince Andrew. This is bad news for not just Andrew but his whole family. Anyone who is supporting… his alibi is potentially liable for a deposition.’

Andrew could, as a British citizen, simply to refuse to participate in the case further, but a default judgement and award for damages would likely be found against him.

Defamation and reputation legal expert Mark Stephens warned last night that the duke now finds himself ‘in the last chance saloon with the towels over the taps’.

He said: ‘He’s got to settle. He’s got to get out. Or he’s a dead man walking. Judge Lewis Kaplan has thrown this judicial decision like a bomb at the heart of the Royal Family.’

Royal insiders told the Mail Buckingham Palace has no choice but to permanently cut Prince Andrew ‘adrift’. They predicted the Queen will have to bar her son from official public appearances such as her Platinum Jubilee.

And they said that if Andrew ‘didn’t do the decent thing’ and hand back his remaining charitable and military roles, then he should now be forced to. Insiders also suggested that a ‘humble’ public acknowledgement that he would no longer seek any kind of role in national life would ‘not go amiss’.

There was no immediate reaction from Andrew’s spokesman or legal team last night. 

RICHARD KAY: Can Prince Andrew find it in himself to do the right thing for the Queen – even if it trashes what’s left of his reputation?

By Richard Kay for the Daily Mail

For Prince Andrew the verdict from New York was like the slamming of a door – with the bolts being drawn behind it.

The unflinching optimism with which he had been assuring family and friends of the integrity of his case is in danger of evaporating.

In his 46-page judgement rejecting Andrew’s motion to have the lawsuit against him thrown out, Judge Lewis Kaplan has changed everything.

Suddenly it is no longer an issue of whether the prince can save himself but rather if he – or the people around him – have the common sense to realise that the main purpose now must be to prevent the reputation and good name of the monarchy being further soiled by this squalid saga.

Only a settlement with his accuser Virginia Roberts it seems, can prevent the prospect of the Queen’s favourite son facing an unseemly court-room battle in which his most private secrets risk being tastelessly exposed for every prurient observer to enjoy.

Who knows what sordid depths will be plumbed if Andrew is obliged to undergo a brutal cross-examination? It will not just be private correspondence, text messages, emails and diary entries that will be aired in public, but quite likely medical records and other intimate details.

And it is entirely possible that there would be the added humiliation of Princess Beatrice being interrogated about her father’s principal alibi that he could not have been with Miss Roberts the night she alleges the prince had sex with her, because he had been with his then 12-year-old daughter at a school friend’s birthday party.

Although there is no guarantee that Beatrice would be called – or even be compelled to give evidence – the mere chance of that happening is enough to bring courtiers out in a cold sweat.

As the enormity of yesterday’s decision was sinking in last night, the task facing those senior figures at the top of the Royal Household was clear: insulating the Queen from the damaging fall-out.

Even the havoc of the Diana years is dwarfed by the potential risk this case threatens. While the most senior royals continue to remain apparently loyal to the Duke of York, some of those who serve the family wonder why, if he is as blameless as he vehemently insists, he has failed to convince the world of his innocence.

It is this attritional impact of the case on the monarchy that is the centre of their thoughts. This year, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, was meant to be one of celebration and joy, marking Her Majesty’s 70 years on the throne and her decades of unquestioning service and duty.

Instead it will be overshadowed by Andrew and his unsavoury predicament.

Until yesterday, Andrew had just about got away with a combination of delaying and

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