The lawyer for Virginia Roberts Guifre said Prince Andrew should submit an interview “under oath” to the police about claims he had sex with one of Jeffrey Epstein’s underage victims.
The call follows the unprecedented television interview at Buckingham Palace that saw BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis question the prince about his relationship with Guifre, one of Epstein’s “sex slaves”.
Prince Andrew repeatedly denied having had sex with underage girls or women connected to Epstein during the interview which centred on Guifre’s claims that she had sex with the royal three times, including at an orgy on the American business man’s private Caribbean island.
Prince has rejected invitations to make sworn statement
“I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened,” the prince told Maitlis, explaining he had been to a Pizza Express in Woking with his daughter Princess Beatrice on one of the days in question, and was looking after his children that night.
Giufre’s lawyer Jack Scarola told Mail Online that Andrew has rejected numerous invitations from his teams to make a sworn statement about the alleged encounters with his client.
“I believe there is an ongoing investigation in New York by the FBI under the supervision of the US Attorney’s office into those involved in facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse. I would love to see Prince Andrew submit to an interview under oath with the investigating authorities.
“Talking to the media doesn’t quite cut it. Statements that are not under oath carry little weight. Andrew would be considered at the least a key witness. I doubt that he is a target of the investigation but it is possible.”
‘Breathtaking lack of regret’
The fall-out from the astonishing interview has raised more questions about the prince’s judgment, the nature of his relationship with Epstein and his own character given the lack of remorse or sympathy expressed by the royal for the victims.
Jennie Bond, who was the BBC’s royal correspondent for 14 years, described the Prince’s “lack of remorse, his lack of sympathy for the victims” as a “glaring open goal”.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House:“He should have expressed enormous revulsion for Epstein and sympathy for his victims but that was sadly absent,”
Bond was among many to question, given Epstein had first been convicted in 2006 and Andrew said he had broken off the relationship then, why “after four years of no contact did he suddenly have to fly to New York, stay in Epstein’s mansion, go to a dinner party and tell him face-to-face that he couldn’t be seen in public [with Epstein]?
“And where did he choose to say, ‘I can’t be seen in public with you’? – in the most public place in New York, in Central Park, where he was photographed [with Epstein].”
Prince ‘simply couldn’t apologise’
The BBC’s royal correspondent Jonny Dymond said: “Well he got the message out – the denial, the acknowledgment of having made a mistake vis-a-vis seeing Epstein, he sowed a bit of doubt about the photo [of Andrew with his arm around Guifre], but I thought at nearly every turn it was undercut by the tone.
“It was a sort of mix of je ne regrette rien and do-you-know-who-I-am? The lack of regret over the friendship was breathtaking, I think, for most people. And then there was this horrible tone-deaf description of how this predator Jeffrey Epstein behaved.”
Dymond told Broadcasting House: “So much of it felt that he simply could not apologise.”
US media ignore interview
Epstein was arrested in July this year and charged with sex trafficking and abusing dozens of underage girls, some as young as 14. He was found dead in a New York prison cell in August, 11 years after he had cut a plea deal with prosecutors in Florida that saw him avoid similar charges for a lighter prison sentence.
Prince Andrew is one of several high profile men linked to Epstein including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton.
Despite the US links and involvement of the Queen’s son, the Independent reports that US media has largely ignored coverage of the story and that “only the tabloid New York Post has carried a story about his interview on its homepage” under the headline “Prince Andrew claims he has bizarre medical condition in strange TV interview.”
Andrew made the revelation about not “being able to sweat” at that period of his life – though he can now, following treatment – to try and disprove Guifre’s claim he was “sweating profusely” when they danced together at Tramp nightclub in London’s Mayfair before having sex at Epstein’s girlfriend’s house in Belgravia.
