Julia's House, a children's hospice charity serving families in Dorset and Wiltshire, was the first to remove Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Prince Andrew, saying it was "inappropriate" for her to continue in the role. Later on Monday, the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, the Children's Literacy Charity and Prevent Breast Cancer also announced they had dropped the duchess as patron. A spokesperson for the duchess said she was not commenting on being asked to step down as a patron of Julia's House. The BBC has since contacted them for further comment.

Food allergy charity the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation and the Children's Literacy Charity - which helps disadvantaged children to improve their literacy skills - likewise said it was "inappropriate" for her to continue, but thanked her for her past support. Prevent Breast Cancer also said the duchess was no longer a patron. Another charity, the Teenage Cancer Trust, for which the duchess has been a patron for 35 years, says it is currently reviewing the situation. The charities' ending of 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 claimed to have 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 public denunciation of Epstein in an interview earlier that year, 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." (BBC)