The women who brought down Andrew
BY ANNETTE WITHERIDGE, THE REPORTER IN STATES WHO
It was the moment that was the beginning of the end for Prince Andrew. The first domino that brought him down. A picture of him walking in New York’s Central Park with a convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.
That very picture set off a chain of events that would see him end up in that chair in Buckingham Palace questioned on Newsnight.
Aptly along the way, it was women that were behind his downfall – from me to Sam Mcalister and leading to Emily Maitlis in front of the cameras for a piece of TV interviewing history.
I’ve been living and working in New York since 1995 so I knew New York very well and the high profile people there. Ghislaine Maxwell was one of them.
Ghislaine was very well known on the New York social set.
She was very much a
New York socialite who lived in a beautiful townhouse on the Upper East
Side, which I later realised was owned by Epstein.
In 2006, when Epstein had been charged with multiple counts of unlawful sex with a minor. I remember being so shocked and thinking ‘oh that’s Ghislaine Maxwell’s partner!’
Later, Epstein was arrested and convicted on one count of soliciting prostitution.
He had been released when I was dispatched one Friday night and told Prince Andrew was in New York and they needed me to track him down.
Although Epstein had been found guilty, it was on the more innocuous charge of soliciting – known as a sweetheart deal – from Florida’s prosecutor, State Attorney Barry Krischer.
He had gone to prison for 13 months. But that involved him going out every single day and working from an office. So it wasn’t exactly prison. I knew he was now back in New York. And Ghislaine still had a place here, too. My first thought on where Prince Andrew could be was Ghislaine.
Andrew had been photographed with Ghislaine in New York before. My photographer and I went to Ghislaine’s place on the Upper East Side.
We saw Ghislaine leave, and she wasn’t in the company of Andrew.
So, I thought, where else could he be? The only other place I can think of was Jeffrey Epstein’s.
I didn’t know he was friends with Epstein but it seemed logical – the Ghislaine connection.
His house was the largest private residence in New York – a sprawling 50-room residence and the sidewalk is actually heated so that the snow melts in winter. It looked more like a private school or museum.
The next morning, I went to his house and stood outside across the street. Outside, there were three guys talking into their cufflinks.
They all had earpieces and they all had English accents – they were Royal protection officers.
We sat outside all day. What struck me and stayed with me is my horror at seeing the number of young girls coming in and out of the house.
They were all wearing Puffa jackets with hoods, so it’s hard to say their age, but they all looked very young. But there was no sign of Andrew.
So we returned the next morning. Then, at around 1pm, the front door opened and out came Epstein .... with Andrew. I jumped into the driver’s seat and we shot off.
There was heavy traffic, so the photographer leapt out of the vehicle and snapped that famous shot of them walking in the park.
That was the moment that kickstarted Prince Andrew’s downfall.
Without that picture, we could never have proved his and Epstein’s friendship. It also helped the next woman in the story.
A journalist named Sharon Churcher had been trying to persuade Virginia Roberts (now Giuffre) to speak out about Prince Andrew for months, after Virginia had filed a lawsuit against Epstein claiming she had being sexually trafficked while she was a minor. Virginia had been unwilling to speak publicly – until, from what I understand, that picture helped change things.
And she decided to share a now infamous photo of her own.
Prince Andrew’s house of cards was slowly but surely beginning to fall.
Having been exposed for visiting a convicted paedophile saw him forced to quit his prestigious trade envoy role in July 2011.
Then, in 2015, in court documents related to Epstein filed in Florida, Virginia’s claims that she was forced to have sex with the prince when she was 17 were there in black and white.
The allegations were, of course, vehemently and furiously denied.
But fast forward to Epstein being arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 and his subsequent death in jail and the renewed interest in the case was off the charts.
And that’s when the Newsnight interview would come to be the final nail in Andrew’s coffin – hammered by women.
After mine and Sharon’s
Newsnight booker Mcalister continued.
She had previously been offered a puff piece interview with Andrew, which she declined.
But she doggedly pursued securing an interview for the real story, eventually persuading yet another woman, Prince Andrew’s private secretary
Sam
Amanda Thirsk, to give interview the go-ahead.
The FBI were very interested in speaking to HRH.
And Virginia Giuffre was still discussing making a legal claim against him.
The case eventually ended up settled out of court, but with a strict no admission of fault clause. But it was Amanda who
the inadvertently also helped bring Andrew down – by agreeing the interview would be “a good idea.” Newsnight’s editor Esme Wren then gave Emily Maitlis her full backing to ask the Queen’s favourite son all the uncomfortable questions.
And that all led to the television moment – nine years after I exposed Andrew and Epstein’s friendship – that went so spectacularly badly for the prince, it’s now made history.
I, like the rest of the world, cringed all the way through the interview. His arrogance and stupidity came through as a dangerous combination.
And it cost him his reputation and public standing, after being forced by the Palace to step back from public duties for the foreseeable future.
Amanda was asked
Thirsk to step
down from her role as Prince Andrew’s right-hand woman.
Meanwhile, I haven’t met Sam and Emily yet. But Sam friend requested me on Facebook a few months ago and we’ve been messaging ever since. I’m hoping we can have lunch soon too.
Seeing Scoop was very emotional for me. Seeing myself and these powerful women brought to life on film and how their incredible work changed everything.
It brought me back to how I felt seeing those young girls going into Epstein’s house.
I had tried to speak to them afterwards, but none would – they seemed scared.
But Virginia had been brave enough to come forward – and thanks to our picture, no one could dispute how close Epstein and Andrew were.
I’m glad I played a role, alongside other brilliant women, in bringing and holding the powerful to account.
It is right that it was women who brought him down.