Andrew had claimed the well-known picture showing Virginia Giuffre could not have been taken in London, as he was in his ‘travelling clothes’.
Sex allegations against Prince Andrew were thrust back into the spotlight today when the brother of socialite Ghislaine Maxwell said he “recognised” the location of a famous photograph of the royal with an alleged grooming victim.
“I do recognise that setting,” said Ian Maxwell, when asked on Radio 4 if the image was taken at his sister’s home in Mayfair, London.
The photograph shows a smiling Andrew with his arm tightly around the waist of Virginia Giuffre, formerly known as Virginia Roberts, with Ms Maxwell in the background.
In an interview with BBC Newsnight in 2019, Andrew claimed while he recognised himself in the image, he did not think he had been to the upstairs of Ms Maxwell’s home, where the photo was said to have been shot.
Ms Maxwell is in a US prison, awaiting trial on charges that she recruited three teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse between 1994 and 1997.
Mr Maxwell appeared on the Today programme to campaign for her to be released pending trial. Asked what he knows about the photograph, he replied:“I don’t know anything about the photograph other than that I’ve seen it’s been published.” But he confirmed that he recognised the room.
Andrew has categorically denied he has had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre. Ms Giuffre alleges she was groomed by Epstein from the age of 17, and claims the duke had sex with her on three separate occasions.
Epstein was 66 when he killed himself in jail in New York in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
standard
