Daily Mail, Thursday, August 29, 2019 Page 17
QQQfeet,’ she said. ‘And then we
went into the bedroom and
he proceeded to make love
to me, so to speak.’
According to Roberts,
Epstein paid her $15,
(£10,000) the following day.
Andrew has denied he had
sexual contact with the teen-
ager, and in 2015 her claims
were ordered to be struck
from the record by a US judge.
There has been no claim that
Andrew knew about the
alleged payment by Epstein.
Lawyers for Maxwell also
dismissed the allegations,
saying the bath was ‘too small
for a man of Prince Andrew’s
size to enjoy a bath in, let
alone sex’.
Roberts claimed she had two
subsequent sexual encounters
with the prince in Epstein’s
Manhattan mansion and at his
hideaway in the US Virgin
Islands. Buckingham Palace
has denied the allegations.
But however strident those
denials may be, the story – and
that photo – will not go away.
In July, Epstein faced even
more serious criminal charges
of sex trafficking of minors in
Florida and New York. The 66-year-
old was found hanging in his prison
cell at the New York Metropolitan
Correctional Centre on August 10.
His reported suicide means Max-
well is regarded by many as the
best witness to the crimes he is
said to have committed. However,
she has not been arrested and has
repeatedly denied allegations lev-
elled against her.
Earlier this month, she was pho-
tographed in Los Angeles, seem-
ingly reading a book entitled The
Book of Honour – The Secret Lives
and Deaths of CIA Operatives.
It has since been claimed the pic-
ture – the first of Maxwell in three
years – was staged by her attorney.
If her hope was that it would quell
interest in the story, it seems highly
unlikely, given the huge number of
unanswered questions.Balmoral as his guests. The follow-
ing year, Epstein and Maxwell
attended a party at Windsor Castle
hosted by the Queen.
In March 2001, they returned to
London – this time with Roberts.
She would outline what she
claimed happened during that visit
in interviews with The Mail on
Sunday and in depositions and
documents submitted in subse-
quent legal proceedings in the US.
On arrival in London, it is claimed
the trio drove straight to Maxwell’s
Knightsbridge mews house
near Harrods.
‘Ghislaine showed me upstairs to
a small bedroom,’ Roberts recalled.
‘That night I gave Jeffrey an erotic
massage. I was jetlagged. I went to
sleep. The next morning, Ghislaine
came into my room. She was chirpy
and really giddy. She jumped on
the bed and said, “Get up, get up,sleepyhead. You’ve got a big day.
We’ve gotta go shopping. You need
a dress because you’re going to
dance with a prince tonight.”
‘She said I needed to be smiley
and bubbly and very happy to be
around him and give a lot of energy
to him because he was the Queen’sguessed 17 and they all kind of
laughed about it and Ghislaine
made a joke that I was getting too
old for Jeffrey. She said, “He’ll soon
have to trade her in.”’
Dinner out followed. ‘I sat
between Jeffrey and Andrew at
dinner,’ she said. ‘Andrew was mak-
ing eye contact with me at every
chance and concentrating on my
plunging V-neck top.’
Next stop was Tramp nightclub
in Mayfair. There they headed for
the VIP area where Andrew got her
a cocktail and asked her to dance.
‘He was the most hideous dancer
I had ever seen,’ she would recall.
‘He was grabbing my hips and he
was pouring with perspiration and
he had this cheesy smile.’
They then returned to Maxwell’s
house, where it is claimed the
photo was taken. ‘All of us went
upstairs and I asked Jeffrey tosnap a picture of me with the
prince,’ she said. ‘I wanted some-
thing to show my mom. Ghislaine
and Jeffrey left us after that.’
The photo was taken on the first
floor of the property. The window
in the picture appears to match
one at the front of the house.
In the photo Andrew is dressed in
dark trousers and a light blue shirt
with several buttons undone at the
neck and its sleeves adorned with
cufflinks. Other photos show this
was a look he favoured at the time.
A few months before, for example,
he was photographed leaving Lon-
don’s Chinawhite club in almost
the exactly the same clothing.
What happened next is fiercely
disputed. In sworn court deposi-
tions, Roberts has alleged she and
the prince took a bath together.
‘He started licking my toes,
between my toes, the arches of mySAME MEWS HOUSE FEATURES
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of snap^ a^ picture^ of me^ with the of se‘He was the most
hideous dancer’The photo that haunts him: Andrew with Virginia Roberts – and, right, their relative heightsMatching windows:
Where they metCORRECT HEIGHTS
son.’ They went shopping for
designer dresses, perfume and
make-up and returned to Max-
well’s house around 4pm.
Soon after, the Duke of York
arrived with his security guards.
They had tea during which ‘Ghis-
laine played one of her favourite
guessing games’.
Roberts said: ‘She asked Andrew
how old he thought I was and he6
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THE FRAME