The Observer (2022-01-09)

The Observer
4 09.01.22 News

Prince Andrew’s legal battle against
sexual assault claims was dealt a
fresh blow yesterday when a woman
who testifi ed in the trial of the sex
traffi cker Ghislaine Maxwell claimed
that Virginia Giuffre told her in 2001
that she had slept with him.
The claims, made by Carolyn
Andriano in an interview with the
Daily Mail , ratchet up pressure on the
prince, as it is a contemporaneous

Friend of Giuffre: ‘she told me

in 2001 she slept with prince’

report of his alleged sexual assault of

the then 17-year-old Giuffre.

He has vehemently denied the

claims and his lawyers have been

urging a US judge to dismiss Giuffre’s

civil suit against him.

Andriano, then 14 and living in

Florida, said she was texted by Giuffre

(formerly Virginia Roberts, before her

marriage) in 2001 from London, who

claimed she had slept with the prince.

“[Giuffre] said, ‘I got to sleep with

him’,” Andriano told the Mail.

The accusations come after

Andriano, now 35, waived her legal

right to anonymity to tell the full

story of her grooming and sexual

assault from aged 14 to 17 at convicted

paedophile Jeffrey Epstein ’s £13m

mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.

Andriano previously gave evidence

anonymously at Maxwell’s trial,

alongside two other women who

opted for anonymity, and Annie

Farmer , 42, who chose to testify pub-

licly. At the trial, Andriano testifi ed

as “Carolyn” and said it was Giuffre

who introduced her as a 14-year-old

to Maxwell and Epstein.

In her Mail interview, Andriano

recalled Giuffre texting her in 2001,

saying: “You’ll never guess who I’m

with ... ” Andriano replied: “Who?”

Andriano told the Mail: “[Giuffre]

said, ‘I’m in London with Jeffrey and

Maxwell and Prince Andrew.’

“She said they were going to have

dinner. I kind of didn’t believe her, but

I had no reason not to. I thought it was

far-fetched but, then again, she knew

wealthy people and had been to fancy

parties and stuff like that.”

Andriano said she had asked

Giuffre if she’d been to the palace.

“And she said, ‘I got to sleep with him’.

She didn’t seem upset about it. She

thought it was pretty cool,’ Andriano

recalled.

Andriano told the Mail that Giuffre

sent a picture of her with the prince

by text. The Observer was unable

to immediately verify the claims

independently. Representatives for

the prince declined to comment,

according to the Mail.

Maxwell, 60, was found guilty

of sex traffi cking in Manhattan in

December. She was arrested in July

2020, charged with involvement in

ex-boyfriend Epstein’s sexual assault

of teenage girls, some as young as 14.

The Mail said Andriano was not

paid for her interview. She told the

paper she was speaking out to let “all

young women to know what hap-

pened to me when I was a teenager

and how it has affected my life. This is

my story and I want to tell it”.

Plan for post-Brexit British farming

based on ‘blind optimism’, say MPs

The government’s plans for a post-

Brexit scheme to support British

farming are based on little more than

“blind optimism” and risk increas-

ing the UK’s reliance on food imports,

a parliamentary inquiry has warned.

The EU’s scheme of subsidies – the

common agricultural policy (CAP)

and worth £3bn-a-year to UK farm-

ers – was one of the long-running

complaints of Eurosceptics, who saw

the ability of Britain to draw up its

own scheme of payments as one of

the major benefi ts of Brexit. Ministers

had said the new scheme would be

used to increase the environmental

benefi ts of agriculture.

However, MPs on the powerful

cross-party public accounts com-

mittee (PAC) found there remained

a crippling lack of detail around the

environmental land management

schemes (ELMs) designed to replace

EU payments. They said that by the

government’s own admission, “its

confi dence in the scheme looks like

blind optimism”. The Department for

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

(Defra) had given no explanation of

how the new scheme’s impact on

English farmers would be mitigated,

warning that some would see their

income from direct payments reduce

by more than half by 2024-25.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown , the Tory

deputy chair of PAC and a long-term

Brexit supporter, said there were still

“no clear plans” to replace CAP, more

than fi ve years after the EU referen-

dum. He warned some small farms

on “wafer-thin margins” could go out

of business.

“Farmers, especially the next gen-

eration who we will depend on to

achieve our combined food produc-

tion and environmental goals, have

been left in the dark ,” he said.

“The UK is also already a large net

Farmers

protested in

London, above,

over plans to

replace EU

subsidies.

Left, the

Troutbeck Valley

in the Lake

District. Tony

West/Getty

ture the soil, improve air and water

quality, and provide habitats for wild-

life through ELMs. The National

Farmers’ Union , however, said the

report should mark a “wake-up call”

for the government and said farmers

had been left in an untenable position

through a lack of information.

“We have considerable concerns

that not all farmers will be able to

get involved,” said Tom Bradshaw ,

the union’s vice-president. “The gov-

ernment has still not made clear

how food production fi ts in with its

proposed new schemes. As the PAC

highlights, we could simply end up

increasing imports of food produced

to lower environmental standards. ”

Doug Parr , Greenpeace UK ’s chief

scientist, said the scheme could have

unintended consequences for con-

sumers and the planet: “The big dan-

ger is that we end up with an even

more divided two-tier food system,

where cheaper food from abroad, with

huge environmental costs, replaces

food that could be grown in nature-

friendly ways here.”

George Eustice, the environment

secretary, said: “We disagree with

many of the points made by the com-

mittee which fail to take account of

recent developments. Farm incomes

have improved signifi cantly since the

UK voted to leave the EU in 2016 and

there will never be a better time to

improve the way we reward farmers.

“In December, I set out comprehen-

sive details of the sustainable farm-

ing Incentive including full payment

rates and we published an in-depth

analysis of UK food security and

agricultural output. In the past week

we’ve shared further details of the

local nature recovery and landscape

recovery schemes and announced a

major increase in payment rates for

those farmers involved in existing

agri-environment schemes.”

Scheme replacing EU

agricultural payments

will increase our

reliance on food

imports, MPs claim.

Michael Savage reports

Jem Bartholomew

‘The danger is we

end up with cheaper

food from abroad

replacing food that

could be grown here’

Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK

importer of food and we heard in evi-

dence that the ELMs’ vague ambition

to ‘maximise the value to society of

the landscape’ may in reality mean

that that increases further. The recent

energy price crisis should be a sal-

utary warning of the potential risks

to the availability and affordability

of food if the UK becomes even more

reliant on imports.”

The new scheme aims to supply

“public money for public goods” , with

farmers funded to restore nature, nur-

ON OTHER PAGES

Royals wait anxiously for the

fallout from prince’s disgrace

Focus, pages 36-