Prince Andrew missed birth of Princess Beatrice’s baby to hide from sexual assault lawyers at Balmoral

PRINCESS Bea’s mum dashed to see her new granddaughter — while dad Prince Andrew had to send his apologies to avoid lawyers slapping him with a sex-claim writ.

Andrew, 61, missed the birth of Beatrice’s first child, and his second grandchild, because he is in hiding 500 miles away in Scotland.

US lawyers want to serve papers accusing him of “rape in the first degree”.
Yesterday a Royal source said: “Andrew has made it quite clear that he wasn’t leaving Balmoral.

“It would appear the advice to him was to stay in hiding and miss the whole thing.”

Sarah Ferguson, who has been staying with her former husband at the Queen’s 50,000 acre retreat, made the 500-mile trip to ­London’s Chelsea and Westminster hospital.

Beatrice, 33, gave birth to the 11th in line to the throne shortly before midnight on Saturday. The girl, weighing 6lbs and 2oz, is so far unnamed.

But it is thought Andrew will remain at Balmoral for three weeks as wrangling continues. The High Court on Friday gave his £1,000-a-day legal team a week to challenge its decision giving itself jurisdiction to serve the papers.

The civil claims were lodged by Virginia Roberts Giuffre last month. She alleges billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a jail cell in 2019, trafficked her to have sex with Andrew when she was 17.

Andrew has always vehemently denied the claims.

The Celeb Report on Sunday revealed Beatrice had gone into hospital on Friday.

Property developer husband Edo Mapelli Mozzi, 38, who has a five-year-old son from a previous relationship, was by her side. The couple married in July last year.

The Queen was said to be “delighted” after welcoming her 12th great-grandchild — and the fourth this year.

Bea’s sister Eugenie, 31, gave birth to a boy at the same hospital in February.
Mike and Zara Tindall ­welcomed their son Lucas in March, and Prince Harry and Meghan’s daughter Lilibet was born in June.