Met Police to look into claims Prince Andrew sought info on accuser

The Metropolitan Police mentioned it’s “actively” wanting into media reviews that Prince Andrew tried to acquire private details about his accuser Virginia Giuffre by his police safety.

“We are aware of media reporting and are actively looking into the claims made,” the power mentioned on Sunday.

Ms Giuffre, who took her personal life earlier this 12 months, mentioned she was among the many women and younger ladies sexually exploited by convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein and his rich circle.

Prince Andrew has not commented on the reviews, however constantly denies all allegations towards him. Buckingham Palace has been contacted for remark.

Ms Giuffre additionally claimed that she was pressured to have intercourse with Prince Andrew on three events, together with when she was 17 on the residence of his pal Ghislaine Maxwell in London, in 2001.

Maxwell is at the moment serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking prices associated to Epstein, her former boyfriend.

According to the Mail on Sunday, Prince Andrew requested his police safety officer to analyze her simply earlier than the newspaper printed a photograph of Ms Giuffre’s first assembly with the prince in February 2011.

The paper alleged that he gave the officer her date of delivery and confidential social safety quantity.

The Sunday Telegraph additionally claimed that Prince Andrew “sought to dig up dirt” on Ms Giuffre.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, talking on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, known as it “deeply concerning”, including that if true, “it’s absolutely not the way that close protection officers should be used”.

On Friday, Prince Andrew introduced that he was voluntarily deciding to not use his titles and giving up membership of the Order of the Garter – the oldest and most senior order of chivalry in Britain.

He will now not use his Duke of York title, an honour obtained from his mom, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The prince had already ceased to be a “working royal” and had misplaced using his HRH title and now not appeared at official royal occasions. His position now will likely be much more diminished.

Emily Maitlis, who performed the now-infamous BBC Newsnight interview in 2019 with the prince, mentioned the transfer had been “a long time coming”, including: “Six years has been quite a long time to wait for this.”

In the interview, the prince claimed he had severed all ties with Epstein in 2010 throughout a go to to his New York residence.

Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Maitlis mentioned she felt “quite sick” when emails emerged that had been despatched in February 2011 from the prince to Epstein, suggesting their friendship had not ended.

She had questioned Prince Andrew on his choice to “spend four days – four nights – in a convicted paedophile’s home” to finish their friendship, to which he had responded he had an inclination to be “too honourable”.

The February 2011 emails together with one from the prince that learn: “Keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!”, suggesting he had stayed in contact with him.

“The tenor of it, the idea not just that he was saying we’re in this together, but signing off ‘let’s play some more soon’, does not suggest that he had ever finished that friendship, that he had ever broken off with Epstein,” Maitlis mentioned.

“You’re left really questioning, why he said that, whether the conversation ever existed, and how much more there is in that interview that we have to now go back and question,” the journalist added.

Prince Andrew has confronted a collection of scandals over current years, together with making an out-of-court settlement with Ms Giuffre in 2022, after she had introduced a civil case towards him.

A posthumous memoir by Ms Giuffre to be launched subsequent week is more likely to solid additional consideration on the prince’s involvement together with her and Epstein.

On Friday night, Ms Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts informed BBC Newsnight his sister would have been “very proud” of the newest improvement relating to Prince Andrew’s titles, however that he would really like the King to go a step additional and take away the title of prince.

“I think anybody that was implicated… should have some sort of responsibility and accountability for these survivors,” he mentioned.

Former BBC royal correspondent Jenny Bond informed the BBC she believed “public clamour for more action against Andrew is going to continue because these headlines are going to continue”.

“We have to remember at the heart of all this is not really the royal family at all – it’s the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, and Virginia Giuffre being one of them.”