Prince Andrew may have relinquished his royal titles, but his downfall appears to be far from over.
The royal – once widely believed to be Queen Elizabeth II’s favourite child – is facing calls to step away from public life for ever after harrowing details of the allegations against him were laid bare in Virginia Giuffre’s bombshell posthumous memoir.
The 65-year-old, who denies any wrongdoing, is also under mounting pressure to give up his 30-bedroom royal mansion and start cooperating with the FBI in their investigation of the paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
The revelations have reignited calls for the Metropolitan Police to investigate the royal, after the force repeatedly declined to open a full inquiry into claims that he slept with Guiffre in London when she was 17.
The Met has looked into allegations relating to Andrew and Epstein’s activities in London three times, and opted not to investigate.
Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law, Sky and Amanda Roberts, said this week that if the Met refused to act, police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) should review the decision. The IOPC has not received a referral on the issue, The Independent understands.
It has been more than 20 years since a member of the royal family faced a criminal investigation. Princess Anne was charged with an offence under the Dangerous Dogs Act in 2002, after her dog bit two children in Windsor Great Park.
The Independent has reviewed what criminal allegations, if any, Andrew could face in Britain and the US.
Met Police looking into allegations of a bid to smear Giuffre
The Met Police have confirmed they are “actively looking” into fresh allegations that Andrew tried to use his police bodyguard to smear his accuser.
The Mail on Sunday claims to have seen leaked emails from 2011 in which Andrew said he had handed over Giuffre’s confidential social security number (SSN) and date of birth to his taxpayer-funded Met Police protection officer, apparently in a bid to dig up dirt on her.
Andrew reportedly wrote in an email to Ed Perkins, Queen Elizabeth’s deputy press secretary: “It would also seem she has a criminal record in the [United] States. I have given her DoB [date of birth] and social security number for investigation with XXX, the on duty ppo [personal protection officer].”
Giuffre’s family have said she does not have a criminal record, and it is not clear whether or not the bodyguard complied with the request.
The Met’s former head of royal protection, Dai Davies, has urged the force to question the royal under caution if there is evidence that he abetted a police officer to commit the criminal offence of misconduct in public office.
“It is time for Scotland Yard to launch a full criminal investigation into Prince Andrew,” he told the Mail.
“Asking a police officer to investigate an alleged victim is outside of their duties, whether that is calling the FBI, your mates in the US, or searching out themselves to find out whether someone has a criminal offence. That is, in my view, a criminal offence.”
According to legal experts, the allegations could also prompt a criminal investigation in the US. Under the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act, individuals who knowingly use, transfer, or possess another person’s SSN with the intent to commit an illegal act can face a fine or a prison term in the most serious cases.
Spencer Kuvin, who represented nine victims of Epstein, told The Telegraph: “Penalties for this crime are very severe and can be up to 15 years in prison.”
He called for the FBI to immediately open an investigation into Andrew’s alleged use of Guiffre’s SSN, and to request an interview with the royal, adding: “Both the US and British authorities should not protect this awful individual. The world should hold Andrew accountable and show everyone that justice matters.”
However, the Met has not confirmed whether it has launched an official investigation, or what crime, if any, this could potentially involve. A spokesperson added: “We are aware of media reporting and are actively looking into the claims made.”
Family court and women’s rights barrister Dr Charlotte Proudman said that the bodyguard claims, if true, would represent a “deeply troubling abuse of power”.
“The idea that public resources could be used to discredit a victim of sexual exploitation reinforces why so many survivors feel unsafe coming forward,” she told The Independent.
“This is not only about individual conduct, but about the wider failure of institutions – including the police – to confront misogyny and hold the powerful to account.”
Andrew accused of having sex with Giuffre
Giuffre, who took her own life in April this year, claims that she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times, including once in London. The prince has always vehemently denied the claims.
Andrew is mentioned a total of 88 times in Giuffre’s 400-page diary-style memoir Nobody’s Girl, which was published on Tuesday.
In her book, Giuffre alleges that she was 17 and had been trafficked when she first slept with the royal while staying at Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell’s house in London. She says they had sex after a night at the Tramp nightclub – describing Andrew, then 41, as a “bumbling dancer”.
The next day, she claims, Maxwell told her: “You did well, the prince had fun.” Later, she claims, Epstein gave her $15,000 for “servicing the man the tabloids called ‘Randy Andy’”. Giuffre claims that she was sent to a bedroom to have sex with Andrew again a month later, when he was visiting Epstein’s New York home.
Giuffre wrote that she did not know exactly when she’d had sex with Andrew for the third time, but that she had taken part in group sex with the royal and eight other young girls on Epstein’s Caribbean island of Little Saint James, also referred to as Little Saint Jeff’s by the billionaire’s friends.
In March 2022, Andrew paid Giuffre an undisclosed amount – estimated to be around $16m – to settle a civil lawsuit in the US, but he accepted no liability in relation to her allegations of sexual assault. She brought the case under the New York Child Victims Act, because it allowed her to raise allegations that would otherwise have fallen outside the statute of limitations in US law.
Given that one of the alleged assaults took place in London, the Met Police have come under pressure to investigate the matter.
The fact that Giuffre claims to have been 17 at the time does not in itself mean the incident was a crime, because the legal age of consent in the UK is 16. However, if it could be proved that Giuffre was a victim of sex trafficking, or that Andrew paid for the encounter, it’s possible that this could have criminal implications for the prince.
Former Met commissioner Cressida Dick claimed that “no one is above the law” when she promised to review documents from the civil suit Giuffre filed in 2021, but the force later confirmed that it was taking no further action against the prince.
It was the third time the Met had refused to launch an investigation. Issues police considered, according to Ms Dick, were whether there was evidence of a crime, and whether the UK was the right jurisdiction to deal with the case.
Dr Proudman called for the Met to reopen its investigation, adding that she believes the force has an “entrenched problem with misogyny and a pattern of minimising violence against women and girls”.
“In light of further evidence that has now come to light in her book, it is difficult to understand why the Met have not reopened their investigation into Virginia Giuffre’s original allegations against Andrew,” she said.
“This is not just about one man or one case, it is about whether the police are prepared to confront their failures to protect women, especially when the accused is powerful. The investigation should be reopened so that survivors can have confidence that no one is above the law.”
Andrew under pressure to help the FBI
Cabinet minister Peter Kyle on Tuesday urged Andrew to cooperate with the US authorities and give evidence about Epstein’s crimes.
In 2020, a federal investigator accused Andrew of providing “zero cooperation” with the US inquiry into Epstein and his conspirators, despite having promised that he was willing to help when he stood down from public duties in 2019.
This week, business secretary Mr Kyle urged him to stick to his word, telling ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I think anybody that has any information that could bring justice and information to victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes should be fully engaging with any of the authorities that are seeking to deliver that information and justice for the victims.”
He added: “Those victims must be first, and they must be central to how we discuss and debate any of these issues relating to the Jeffrey Epstein ... situation, and the crimes he committed. So of course, anybody, anywhere that has information that can deliver that justice should be sharing it openly.
“I believe that Andrew, in the past, has said that he would cooperate, and I urge him to stick to his word on that.”
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick agreed that Andrew should give evidence to the US authorities “about what he knew and what his involvement was” in the scandal.
