Duke: I visited Epstein to end our friendship
Andrew explains stay at convicted paedophile’s mansion in 2010
PRINCE Andrew has claimed that he visited Jeffrey Epstein in 2010 – after the businessman was registered as a sex offender – to end their friendship.
He said the trip to New York was to tell the billionaire paedophile that he ‘couldn’t be his friend any more’. Andrew feels he has been ‘hammered for one mistake’ over the trip and that he was considered a ‘trophy friend’ by Epstein.
The Sunday Times quoted a source close to Andrew who said: ‘The duke has apologised again and again for the judgment error. But what he did wasn’t criminal. It was a mistake. He went to see a friend to tell them he couldn’t be their friend any more.’
Pictures of Andrew and Epstein were published and caused such a storm that Andrew had to quit as a trade envoy. He has subsequently said that he was ‘appalled’ by Epstein’s conduct and has vehemently denied having sex with one of Epstein’s girls.
Andrew’s relationship with Epstein has been under intense scrutiny since the financier was arrested in July in New Jersey.
He killed himself in August while awaiting trial for sex trafficking but his victims have urged the duke to ‘come clean’ about their friendship.
In 2008 Epstein had admitted sex with underage girls. Andrew’s ‘goodbye’ at Epstein’s £65million mansion lasted around a week in December 2010. On the same trip Andrew and Epstein were seen walking through Central Park and shopping on Fifth Avenue.
Several young women were seen coming and going from the property
‘Good at keeping their cover’
and Andrew waved a brunette goodbye. Epstein paid the duke’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson £15,000 after Andrew returned home. The payment was supposed to be the first of a number of instalments, but they never happened because Andrew and Epstein fell out.
The Duchess of York has said she ‘deeply regrets’ any connection to Epstein. Before his death she added that she was ‘so contrite I cannot say’, would return any money to Epstein and vowed to have no more dealings with him.
The source said that Epstein was ‘very good at keeping his cover’ in the same way as Jimmy Savile. Savile was not prosecuted before his death in 2011 but was exposed as a paedophile afterwards and Scotland Yard identified 450 alleged victims over a 54-year period.
The source said: ‘Every example of anyone behaving like Epstein, who has later been discovered, has been very good at keeping their cover. If you have someone like the duke, you don’t show that side of yourself to him. That’s the sadness of being someone like the duke, you sometimes don’t see the real person because you are a trophy friend.’
Andrew has however admitted he knew Epstein for 12 years between 1999 and 2011 and flight logs show he visited him on his private island.
The duke has also said: ‘I deplore the exploitation of any human and would not condone, participate in, or encourage any such behaviour.’
Buckingham Palace said: ‘The Duke of York did not visit Epstein again following their meeting in 2010. As HRH stated in August this year that visit “was a mistake and an error” and one he regrets.’