Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark had to issue a swift apology during Wednesday night’s live broadcast, after erroneously mentioning Prince Charles during a segment on the Prince Andrew sexual assault case.
During her introduction, Kirsty announced the night’s discussion points, including segments on Boris Johnson and the Duke of York.
Moving from one to the other, the broadcaster mistakenly said: “Also tonight – another man on the edge, the Prince Charles sexual assault case can now go ahead says the judge. But will the public humiliation force him to settle out of court?”
Unfortunately, for Kirsty, the error did not go unnoticed by viewers on Twitter:
Oops. #Newsnight just said ‘the Prince Charles sexual assault case…’ instead of Prince Andrew. ?
— Maddy Raman (@maddy_raman) January 12, 2022
Later in the broadcast, after concluding a discussion on the UK government, the presenter apologised twice for her mistake.
“The New York judge Lewis Kaplan will go down in history as the man who enabled Prince Andrew, Duke of York, to be brought before a civil court,” she began. “Sorry, I earlier said ‘Prince Charles’.”
During the same speech, Kirsty concluded: “Again, I apologise for mentioning Prince Charles, rather than Prince Andrew.”
HuffPost UK has contacted the BBC for additional comment.
On Wednesday, Prince Andrew’s motion to get the civil case against him dropped was officially dismissed by New York federal judge Lewis Kaplan.
In the civil case, Virginia Giuffre accuses the Duke of York of having sex with her when she was 17 – and therefore a minor under US law – in 2001. Andrew has consistently and vehemently denied the allegations.
Giuffre also alleges that she was trafficked to the royal by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell between 2000 and 2002. Maxwell was found guilty in a sex abuse trial in December 2021.
