Sarah Ferguson likely to face court amid Prince Andrew's rape case

Sarah Ferguson will likely be subpoenaed if Prince Andrew fails to get his sexual abuse case thrown out of U.S. court.

According to reports, the Duchess of York will have to give her testimony on the whereabouts of her ex-husband on the night that his accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, said he was with her at a club in London. The Duke of York had denied her claims and said he was with his eldest daughter Princess Beatrice at a birthday party in Pizza Express in Woking.

He also named Sarah Ferguson as an alibi and made the revelation during his now-infamous BBC Newsnight interview. He was adamant that he was at the restaurant because of one rule in his family. If one parent is away the other should tend to the children. The duke said at the time that the duchess was not around.

Bradley Simon, an ex-federal prosecutor based in New York, said that Prince Andrew faces the "intrusive" process if the case continues. Calling it an "open season," he told The Telegraph, "They're going to seek every correspondence, phone logs, emails, diaries. They're going to go after people who were with him."

Simon, who now works as a defence attorney specialising in complex civil litigation, said it would be "quite intrusive" and that the royal has limited options. He said the "best course of action" would be to go for a quiet settlement.

"But it seems like the plaintiffs want to have a big public spectacle here so it may not be that he could settle. And then, for instance, with the tactical steps that an ordinary defendant might take, like challenging service or perhaps undermining the credibility of the plaintiff, there are repercussions for him because of who he is. The royal family is obviously concerned about perception, so his options may be limited," he explained.

A representative for Sarah Ferguson has yet to respond to Simon's claims. But it is likely that she will testify in support of Prince Andrew as she has vowed to remain loyal to him. She even joined him as he escaped to Balmoral early in August in what reports claimed was an attempt to dodge being served the civil papers that accused him of "rape in the first degree."