Prince Andrew’s disastrous Newsnight interview in which he denied meeting a woman accusing him of sexual assault provides evidence of his ‘guilt’, court papers claim.
In documents filed in New York on Monday night, Virginia Roberts furiously hit back at the Duke of York’s attacks on her credibility after he accused her of launching a civil lawsuit in the US in pursuit of ‘another payday’.
Miss Roberts, who now uses the married name Giuffre, claims she was trafficked by Andrew’s friend Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with the prince three times – in New York, London and the US Virgin Islands when she was 17 in 2001.
In August she sued the duke for unspecified damages.
The now-notorious photograph of Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts, who was aged 17, at Ghislaine Maxwell's townhouse in London, on March 13, 2001
The latest filing points out that when Andrew sat down with Emily Maitlis for his car-crash BBC interview in November 2019, he said that he could not recall meeting Miss Roberts.
Referring to a now-notorious photograph of the duke with his arm allegedly around the waist of Miss Roberts in a townhouse in Belgravia, London, belonging to Ghislaine Maxwell, David Boies, Miss Roberts’s attorney, said the denial was ‘so at odds with photographs and other evidence that it is itself indicative of guilt’.
In an attempt to have the case thrown out at an early stage, his legal team accused Miss Roberts of ‘profiting’ from her accusations for years.
But responding this week, lawyers for Miss Roberts said Andrew was trying to ‘avoid confronting his own misconduct’ by ‘attempting to blame and shame his victim’.
They added that, at the time of the alleged abuse, Miss Roberts feared she would be ‘killed’ if she did not do as the duke, Epstein and his alleged accomplice Maxwell ordered.
Outlining the acts said to have taken place at homes belonging to Epstein, Mr Boies wrote in a 45-page filing: ‘Prince Andrew sexually abused Mrs Giuffre on a number of occasions when she was under the age of 18 including at Epstein’s
