PRINCE Andrew is set to lose his taxpayer-funded guard as King Charles looks to strip back his disgraced brother’s public funding, according to reports.
After stepping down from public life following the furore over his friendship with paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, the royal is set to lose his armed bodyguards and have them replaced with taser-equipped security personnel.
The outgoing security were paid for by the taxpayer to the tune of £3 million a year but now, according to The Sun on Sunday, the King may personally pay for his younger brother’s new private security.
Buckingham Palace did not comment on the monarchy’s security arrangements.
As a member of the royal family, Prince Andrew was given bodyguards from Protection Command, a specialist branch of the Metropolitan Police.
The officers in this arm of the Met usually appear in plain clothes while escorting members of the monarchy in public and have permission to carry guns.
However, if the King’s younger brother does take on private security, they will not have permission to carry firearms and would likely be equipped with tasers instead.
An inside source has called for more transparency into the funding for the arrangements, adding that they believed the taxpayer would “end up paying for this indirectly anyway".
They went on to say that it was a “shattering blow for his ego”.
And former Home Office minister Norman Baker said that armed security personnel has "always been a status symbol for the likes of Prince Andrew".
Baker added that since Prince Andrew carries out no public duties and lives as a “private individual”, he should “of course” fund his own security.
Andrew’s shifting role follows him paying millions to settle a civil sexual assault case involving Virginia Giuffre, a woman he claimed never to have met.
