Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson removed from charity over Epstein email

The Duchess of York has been removed as patron of a children’s charity, in the wake of an email emerging in which she called sex offender Jeffrey Epstein her “supreme friend”.

Julia’s House, a children’s hospice charity serving families in Dorset and Wiltshire, has removed Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Prince Andrew, from her role as a patron.

“Following the information shared this weekend on the Duchess of York’s correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein, Julia’s House has taken the decision that it would be inappropriate for her to continue as a patron of the charity,” said a charity spokesperson.

“We have advised the Duchess of York of this decision and thank her for her past support.”

A spokesperson for the duchess said she was not commenting on the charity’s decision.

Another charity, the Teenage Cancer Trust, which has the duchess as a patron, says it is currently reviewing the situation.

The Julia House charity’s ending of its links with the duchess follows the publication of an email from her to Epstein in 2011, which appears to have been sent after she had publicly broken off contact with him.

The email appeared to privately apologise for her public rejection of Epstein, saying: “You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.”

That seemed to contradict her earlier public denunciation of Epstein in an interview in 2011, in which she had said her involvement with him had been a “gigantic error of judgement” and that: “What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.”

A spokesperson for the duchess said her subsequent email to Epstein, describing him as a friend, had been sent because she was trying to counter a threat from him to sue her for defamation – and that she still really regretted any association with him.

“This email was sent in the context of advice the duchess was given to try to assuage Epstein and his threats,” said a statement from her spokesman at the weekend, when the email to Epstein had been published.

The email exchange was several years after Epstein’s conviction and jailing for sex offences in 2008.

The duchess became patron of the Julia’s House charity in 2018 and had visited one of its hospices, although she appears now to have been removed from the website, no longer appearing alongside other patrons, which include football manager Eddie Howe, actor Nigel Havers and designer Jasper Conran.

The hospice charity helps children with “life-shortening and life-threatening conditions”, supporting them and their families.