Arrogance and stupidity sank him; it may not be over yet

It started with a simple photograph, probably the most consequential ever taken of a member of the royal family.

- Stephen Bates

There was Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, Baron Killyleagh and Knight of the Garter, with his arm around a young woman, while Ghislaine Maxwell stood wolfishly grinning in the background.

Without that photograph, taken at a party at Maxwell's London home in 2001, who would have believed Virginia Giuffre when she said she had been trafficked across the Atlantic as a teenager and obliged to have sex with a prince of the blood royal? As it was, the story could not be convincingly denied, however much friends of Andrew tried to suggest the picture was a fake.

And who would have believed that Andrew would seek to tarnish her name much later by instructing his royal protection officer to seek out derogatory details about her, even providing her birth date and social security number, which could only have come from the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or his minions?

The photo reveals an odd, giveaway gesture by someone who publicly pretended never to have heard of her, and yet paid her $12m (£9m) of his mother's money to fend off a long prevaricated lawsuit.

In this context, talk of the royals acting decisively to cut Andrew off is wide of the mark. This scandal has gone on for the best part of 15 years, since that photograph with Giuffre and another of Andrew walking amiably in Central Park with Epstein came to light.

Arguably, it has lasted longer still. How long ago did his brothers and sister, perhaps even his parents, know about Andrew? They must have realised, if his staff and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some disreputable friends, not even bothering to hide them as he invited them to Buckingham Palace, or Balmoral, or even the Royal Lodge.