The more we learn about Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein, the worse it gets

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London: King Charles has found a way to shield the royal family from each new revelation about Prince Andrew after years of damage to the monarchy.

But the new arrangements do not protect Andrew from his personal history – and he is about to be swamped by a wave of claims from the past.

Prince Andrew with Virginia Roberts Giuffre (centre) in 2001 and Epstein’s then personal assistant Ghislaine Maxwell.

The new memoir from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, to be published on Tuesday, gives a detailed account of her relations with the prince when she was 17 and caught up in the world of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The core allegations have been put to Andrew before, and he has denied them. He did this again in his brief statement last Friday when giving up the use of his titles. “As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me,” he said.

Andrew did not specify the allegations. But Giuffre does. She sets them out in the new book, co-written with Amy Wallace, so the public can read and hear her story.

‘Back at the house, Maxwell and Epstein said goodnight and headed upstairs, signalling it was time that I take care of the prince. In the years since, I’ve thought a lot about how he behaved.’

Extract from Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s book, Nobody’s Girl

Adding to the pain of her account is that we know it ends in great suffering. Giuffre died by her own hand in Western Australia in April this year, aged 41. Her memoir becomes her final testimony about Epstein and the woman who was convicted in court of enabling him, Ghislaine Maxwell.

It also becomes her most important account, for the record, about the man who has been cut loose from Buckingham Palace.

Giuffre tells of being recruited for Epstein, when she was 16 and Maxwell saw her walking to work at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s resort in Florida. Maxwell asked her if she was interested in massage work. That night, she introduced her to Epstein. It turned out to be more than a massage. Giuffre says she felt empty, but stayed.

“A master manipulator, he threw what looked like a lifeline to girls who were drowning,” she writes in extracts from her book, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice.

Virginia Giuffre, with a photo of herself as a teen, was one of the most high-profile victims of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.Credit: Getty Images

Andrew turned up in March 2001 in London, where he visited Epstein at his mews house near Hyde Park, and they were joined by Maxwell and Giuffre. This was the night of the photograph of Andrew with his arm around Giuffre’s waist. Maxwell stands nearby; Epstein took the photograph. The four went to dinner and then to a nightclub.

“The prince went to the bar and came back with a cocktail for me,” she writes. “Then he invited me to dance. He was sort of a bumbling dancer, and I remember he sweated profusely. On the way back, Maxwell told me, ‘When we get home, you are to do for him what you do for Jeffrey.’

“Back at the house, Maxwell and Epstein said goodnight and headed upstairs, signalling it was time that I take care of the prince. In the years since, I’ve thought a lot about how he behaved. He was friendly enough, but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright.”

Jeffrey Epstein appears in court in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2008.

Giuffre remembers Andrew being in a rush to have intercourse and writes that the whole thing lasted less than an hour. Maxwell praised her the next morning: “You did well. The prince had fun.” In her memoir, Giuffre writes that she received $US15,000 ($23,000). She says she had sex with Andrew on two later occasions.

Nobody can check now with Giuffre about her recollections, but it is worth noting that she testified about these events in the long legal case about her experience. Andrew denied culpability and maintains the denials. Famously, he denied sweating when her account was put to him in a Newsnight interview on the BBC.

In the end, however, he paid several million pounds to settle her civil claim for sexual assault.

Falsehoods exposed

While the essential claims from Giuffre were known, the memoir allows the public to hear them from her. The impact on Andrew is all the more damaging because some of his earlier statements have proven to be false.

When Andrew appeared on Newsnight in 2019, he faced a thorough interrogation from host Emily Maitlis about why he resumed contact with Epstein after the latter had pleaded guilty to sex offences in 2008 and served time in prison. Andrew stayed with Epstein in New York in December 2010, and the pair were photographed in New York.

Asked about the photograph, Andrew said he only went to see Epstein to tell him they had to part ways. He was certain about this: “To this day, I never had any contact with him from that day forward.”

A new email purportedly from the prince, counters that assertion. The message, reported for the first time last week, shows Andrew writing to Epstein two months after their New York meeting to discuss the claims from Giuffre.

“It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it,” Andrew wrote. “Otherwise, keep in close touch, and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”

Once that email emerged last Monday, the scandal became an even greater risk for Buckingham Palace. Could it rely on anything Andrew said? The palace needed a stronger firewall between the King and the prince.

The new arrangement does not extinguish Andrew’s titles. He has simply agreed not to use them. Going any further means taking the problem to Westminster to ask parliament to strip him of his dukedom – something that has not been done in a century. The King clearly wanted to avoid this step, although it will be an option if the palace feels it needs to impose a further sanction on Andrew.

Prince Andrew answered questions regarding his association with Jeffery Epstein during the BBC interview.

That is why the latest claims are both troubling and intriguing. The more we learn about Andrew and Epstein, the worse it gets. According to reports in London on Sunday, Andrew went to his personal security detail – which was funded by taxpayers – to seek their help when Giuffre’s claims first went public in 2011.

The core claim is that Andrew asked the security team to look into Giuffre and gave them her private social security number, which he presumably got from Maxwell. He then claimed to palace officials that Giuffre had a criminal record. This was wrong. His personal defence appears to have begun with a falsehood.

The past is coming back for Andrew, and it comes with the mockery of Shakespeare: “And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.” What other emails might emerge from the past?

For now, the royal family has shielded itself from the worst royal scandal in living memory. The King has isolated his brother, so the flames that scorch Andrew should not burn the palace. If more needs doing, Prince William is said to take a harder line against his uncle. Everything depends on events.

Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts Giuffre is published in Australia by Penguin on Tuesday, October 21.

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