Prince Andrew is following the same victim-blaming legal strategy as Ghislaine Maxwell, biographer says

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday

Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Prince Andrew’s attempts to “victim-blame” Virginia Giuffre while accusing her of having false memories shows that the royal is being “seriously misadvised”, his biographer says.

Nigel Cawthorne told The Independent he was surprised that Andrew was employing the same legal tactics in his civil sexual assault case that Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorneys tried during her sex-trafficking trial; attack their accusers’ motives and claim memories of abuse have become distorted over time.

A source close to the Duke of York told The Independent that he had always maintained his innocence and he had every right to probe Ms Giuffre’s claims.

“The Duke is perfectly entitled to mount a legitimate defence against Ms Giuffre’s allegations, and yet trial by mob and media means he is accused of victim blaming for pointing out inconsistencies and defects on the plaintiffs claims.”

Maxwell was convicted of five counts of recruiting and grooming young girls for the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and faces up to 60 years in prison when she is sentenced in June.

Andrew, 61, is being sued for emotional harm and battery by Ms Giuffre over allegations she was forced by Epstein to have sex with the royal three times when she was 17 years old.

The Duke of York has denied any wrongdoing and suggested in a legal filing last week that Ms Giuffre’s “wrongful conduct” would be used against her at trial.

His attorneys have also said they want to question Ms Giuffre’s psychologist Dr Judith Lightfoot as she “may suffer from false memories”.

Mr Cawthorne, who has written biographies of both Prince Andrew and Maxwell, said the royal appeared to be spending “vast sums of money for lawyers who seem to be putting it straight in their pockets without helping in any way”.

“He’s been seriously misadvised. First of all he went and hid behind mummy’s skirt in Balmoral and refused to have the legal papers served on him. And now they’ve adapted the same strategy that didn’t work for Ghislaine,” he said.

“If there is such a thing as false memory, I think she must be suffering from it. As is Prince Andrew. He couldn’t remember ever meeting Virginia Giuffre when there are witnesses who have seen them being together on at least five occasions.”

The Duke of York’s attempts to distance himself from Maxwell were strange given their well-documented, decades-long friendship, he said.

Maxwell and Epstein had been guests at Windsor Castle and Balmoral in the late 1990s, and photographs of the pair cozying up at the Queen’s Scottish estate were produced in evidence at her trial.

“You don’t get invited to Balmoral if you’re not a close friend,” Mr Cawthorne told The Independent.

“Their whole attitude beggar’s belief.”

Mr Cawthorne wrote the 2020 biography Prince Andrew, Epstein and the Palace, which charts Andrew’s descent from the “royal who could do no wrong” to the “pariah prince”.

He says the royal’s upbringing as the Queen’s second son left him with only a bit part role to play in the monarchy.

“If you’re born behind palace gates and as soon as you can walk and talk everyone is bowing and scraping and calling you Your Royal Highness, you’ll get a pretty distorted view of the world,” he said.

“Then being the spare, as it were, he doesn’t really have a role.”

Buckingham Palace cut ties with Prince Andrew in a terse statement released last month, as he relinquished his military titles and royal patronages.

Now that Andrew was left to fight the case as a “private citizen”, there would be questions over how he could afford to pay his legal fees, Mr Cawthorne added.

“These things can drag on forever, and the attorneys can make lots of money out of you.”

The ongoing fallout could overshadow the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, he added.

“One must feel sorry for his mum who has led a blameless life and just lost her husband.”

Prince Andrew has known Maxwell since her university days, he told Newsnight in 2019.

The pair were regularly seen out socalising together in London and New York after his divorce from Sarah Ferguson in 1996.

Prince Andrew was introduced to Epstein by Maxwell in the early 1990s.

The Duke was a frequent flyer on Epstein’s private jet, the “Lolita Express”, and often stayed with him at his Manhattan townhouse and private island Little St James in the US Virgin Islands.

Epstein killed himself in prison in 2019 aged 66 while awaiting his own sex trafficking trial.

Ghislaine Maxwell: Jeffrey Epstein and the World’s Most Notorious Socialite by Nigel Cawthorne is available from www.hive.co.uk