Duke’s accuser must be ‘put on the rack’ on TV say supporters
FRIENDS of the Duchess of York are demanding the BBC put Virginia Roberts “on the rack” and subject her to a grilling as stringent as the one given to the Duke of York.
Ms Roberts has accused the Duke of York of having sex with her on three occasions when she was aged 17 in 2001 and being trafficked by his friend, Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
The Duke, 59, attempted to repair his reputation in an interview with BBC’S Newsnight that went so catastrophically wrong that the Queen effectively sacked him from public duties.
Now Ms Roberts, 35, is being interviewed for another flagship BBC programme Panorama, for broadcast on Monday. But friends of the Duchess of York, 60, who remains her former husband’s most vocal supporter, said: “She [Virginia Roberts] should be properly cross examined on all the evidence that doesn’t stack up. She should be put on the rack. The BBC cannot drill him as they did and just believe her, when there are lots of inconsistencies.”
The friend of the Duchess who, despite their divorce in 1996 continues to live with the Duke in Windsor Royal Lodge, said the BBC should ask Ms Roberts how much she had been paid for a photograph showing the Duke with his arm around her at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell. The friend said they believed the photograph had been sold for almost £150,000.
The friend’s intervention will cause alarm because of the demand to “put on the rack” a victim of Epstein’s abuse.
The Duke suggested to the BBC that the photograph may have been faked because he claimed he only wore a suit and tie in London and in the photograph he is in “travelling clothes”.
His various alibis drew ridicule including a claim that he could not sweat, contradicting Ms Roberts’ description of him once “sweating profusely”.
Ms Roberts is understood to have given the original photograph to the FBI and is cooperating with its inquiry into Epstein’s sex trafficking ring. In August, Epstein killed himself in prison while awaiting trial, having been previously convicted of sexual offences in 2008. Alleged co-conspirators, including
‘[Virginia Roberts] should be properly cross examined on all the evidence that doesn’t stack up’
Miss Maxwell, who is his former girlfriend and a close friend of the Duke’s, were reportedly under investigation. Ms Maxwell denies any wrongdoing.
Ms Roberts alleged she was forced to sleep with the Duke three times between 2001, when she was 17, and 2002, in London, New York and on Epstein’s private Caribbean island.
Her claims were struck from US civil court records in 2015 when a judge ruled they were “immaterial and impertinent” to the “central claim”, a defamation suit against Ms Maxwell. Ms Roberts was paid an undisclosed sum when the case was settled out of court.
Buckingham Palace has branded her allegations “false and without any foundation”, adding: “Any suggestion of impropriety with under age minors” by the Duke was “categorically untrue”.