Friendship with sex offender played role in demise of prince as trade representative

Prince Andrew who last year visited Panama  as Britain's "special representative" for Trade and Investment, has relinquished that role.

The prince has been criticized over his friendship with controversial figures, including convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier, says the BBC.

The prince held the role as UK envoy from 2001 to promote UK business interests abroad.

His friendship with Mr Epstein, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 for soliciting a minor for prostitution, led to calls for Prince Andrew to step down from his role in March, but Prime Minister David Cameron gave him his full backing.

The prince's judgment has also been questioned for holding meetings with Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif, and for entertaining the son-in-law of Tunisia's ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali at Buckingham Palace.

The prince's relations with Timor Kulibayev, the son-in-law of the President of Kazakhstan, have also previously been questioned. Mr Kulibayev purchased the duke's Sunninghill Park home for £3million more than its £12million asking price in 2007.

And in November 2010 a hitherto secret cable published on Wikileaks revealed a US ambassador wrote that the Duke of York spoke "cockily" during an official engagement, leading a discussion that "verged on the rude".

There have also been long-running complaints about the lavish nature of his official foreign trips.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said the prince would "continue to support business in the UK", adding that he "will not have a specialist role as defined by government but will undertake trade engagements if requested".

In his 2011 annual review, published on Thursday, the duke said: "As the evolution of my role continues apace and in order to reflect the changes I have outlined, I have decided that the label I gave myself when I began this role of Special Representative has served its purpose and is no longer necessary to the work that I do today and, more importantly, in the future."

Prime Minister David Cameron said he would like to thank the duke for the "major contribution he has made over the last decade to UK trade".

"I am certain that he and others in the Royal Family will continue to support and promote British business interests both at home and overseas," he added.