A temporary administrator, Ian Torrington Blatchford, was appointed to manage Ms Giuffre’s estate on an interim basis earlier this week while the legal fight is settled
A legal battle over the estate of former Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre has begun in Western Australia’s Supreme Court.
Lawyers for her two sons, her housekeeper and her former lawyer appeared in an Australian court on Friday for the case that will decide who controls her estate, which is believed to be worth millions of pounds. Ms Giuffre, who was handed a reported £12million after settling a lawsuit with Andrew in 2022, died by suicide in April at the age of 41, without leaving a formal will.
The only adults of her three children, Christian Giuffre, 19, and Noah Giuffre, 18, want the court to appoint them administrators of their mother’s estate. But the application is being opposed by both Ms Giuffre’s former housekeeper and caregiver Cheryl Myers and her former Perth-based lawyer Karrie Louden, who say they should be made administrators.
Giuffre’s eldest children filed the case in the Supreme Court of Western Australia in June to gain control of their mother’s estate, including property in Western Australia and potential revenue from her memoir Nobody’s Girl, which repeated her claims that she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times after being trafficked to him by his paedo pal Jeffrey Epstein. The posthumous memoir was released last month days before Andrew, who is now known as plain Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was stripped of his Prince title, as well as other honours. The 65-year-old is now waiting for the US government’s Epstein files to be released, while also facing pressure to appear before a US Congress committee probing Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
Met Police officers are also probing claims that the former prince, who has consistently denied having any memory of ever meeting Giuffre, asked a police protection officer to uncover private details about her in a bid to discredit her. According to a 2011 email, the shamed ex-royal asked his taxpayer-funded bodyguard to investigate Ms Giuffre, giving her date of birth and social security number.
At Friday’s hearing, lawyers discussed a range of issues, including whether Ms Giuffre’s daughter, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and her estranged husband Robert Giuffre, should become parties in the case.
Ms Giuffre, who separated from her husband and children earlier this year, took her own life on April 25 amid divorce proceedings with Robert, who she claimed had been abusive during their marriage. She had also been charged with breaching a family violence restraining order over an incident in February, but died before appearing in court over the matter.
A temporary administrator, Ian Torrington Blatchford, was appointed to manage Ms Giuffre’s estate on an interim basis earlier this week. His role, for which he is paid $400-an-hour, allows all Giuffre’s active legal proceedings to proceed posthumously, according to documents filed by the Supreme Court.
A number of legal cases, including a defamation lawsuit lodged against Alan Dershowitz, Jeffrey Epstein’s former lawyer, a claim filed against her by Epstein victim Rina Oh, and a civil suit filed by Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, all remain open.
In an informal will sent to her lawyer in late February, Giuffre stated she wanted her money to go to her children, with specific parameters, as well as to other family members and a handful of friends. She asked that Robert “not receive a dime”. Her request was in spite of spousal inheritance laws in Western Australia, under which Robert would be entitled to a lump sum and a third of the remaining estate.
Registrar Danielle Davies said: “It appears to me that the deceased’s husband should be joined or at the very least notified.”
The court was told when the writ was filed in June, Robert Guiffre agreed to it, but that was before Ms Louden and Ms Myers’s filed their counterclaim. The registrar added: “Now there’s a defence counterclaim that would remove his entitlement … it seems he should be joined as a party to the proceedings.”
She ordered the parties to lodge further legal documents by 5pm on Monday and indicated she would set another court hearing for next year.
