10 2GM Saturday January 1 2022 | the times
News
The Duke of York cannot provide
documentary evidence that he has the
“inability to sweat”, his lawyers have
said, despite it being a riposte against
claims he had sex with a teenager.
Prince Andrew is also unable to name
any witnesses to support his alibi that he
was in Pizza Express in Woking on the
night he was accused of having sex with
Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre, in 2001
when she was 17.
Giuffre’s attorneys asked the duke to
name people he might have met in the
restaurant who could back up the alibi
he gave during an interview on News-
night in 2019.
She has said that she was introduced
to the duke by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghis-
laine Maxwell and accompanied him to
Tramp nightclub. “He was a hideous
dancer and he was sweating profusely
all over me,” she told NBC. “I just
remember like, ugh, I need a shower.”
In the lawsuit she has filed against
the duke, she says that she was then
forced to have sex with him at Max-
well’s house in Belgravia.
Andrew, who denies the allegations,
told Newsnight that her account could
not be true “because I have a peculiar
medical condition which is that I don’t
sweat or I didn’t sweat at the time...
because I had suffered what I would de-
scribe as an overdose of adrenalin in the
Falklands war when I was shot at... It
was almost impossible for me to sweat.”
He also said that on the day in ques-
tion he had taken his daughter Beatrice
to a children’s party at Pizza Express in
the late afternoon and was at home with
his children for the rest of the night.
As part of the discovery process,
lawyers for Giuffre asked the duke toNo papers to back sweat
claim, say duke’s lawyers
Will Pavia New York name “all persons you met or encoun-
tered at a Pizza Express located in
Woking, England” and anyone he met
at Tramp. They also asked for “all docu-
ments concerning your alleged medical
condition of anhidrosis, hypohidrosis
or your inability to sweat.”
Lawyers for the duke replied “none”
when asked for the names of people he
had met at the restaurant. They said
that the request for evidence of his
inability to sweat was “harassing” and
sought confidential, private informa-
tion. They added: “No such documents
exist in his possession.” He denies going
to Tramp.
Lisa Bloom, a lawyer, says she repre-
sents a witness who saw him at the
Tramp nightclub with Giuffre.
Giuffre, 38, also says that during a
later encounter in New York she was
made to sit on Andrew’s knee with
another alleged victim, named in previ-
ous depositions as Johanna Sjoberg,
while “Prince Andrew touched [Giuf-
fre]”. Giuffre has said that Maxwell gave
the duke a Spitting Image puppet in his
likeness and that “Andrew cupped my
breast” with it as she sat on his lap. In a
deposition for a previous case Sjoberg
said that “they took the puppet’s hands
and put it on Virginia’s breast, and so
Andrew put his on mine”.
Giuffre’s lawyers requested “all gifts”
he might have received from Epstein or
Maxwell, “including but not limited to
puppets”, and any documents about
them. His lawyers said that “no such
documents exist in his possession”.
Giuffre’s lawyers filed the documents
detailing their questions and the duke’s
responses after his lawyers filed a mo-
tion to halt proceedings in the case
pending an investigation of whether
Giuffre was a resident of the US. They
said she was actually a resident of Aus-
tralia and was thus unable to file a suit
against him in New York.
Giuffre’s lawyers said that they would
prove that her home was in Colorado
and accused the duke of “a transparent
attempt to delay discovery into his own
documents and testimony”. They
added: “If Prince Andrew truly has no
documents concerning... his alleged
medical inability to sweat or anything
that would support the alibis he gave
during his BBC interview, then
continuing with discovery will not be
burdensome to him at all.”
Yesterday Judge Lewis Kaplan
denied the duke’s request to temporari-
ly suspend proceedings. He will hold a
hearing in the case on Tuesday, at
which the duke’s lawyers will seek to
have the case dismissed.In 2000 Prince Andrew was seen
leaving Chinawhite, a VIP nightclubNews Ghislaine Maxwell