Andrew’s legal team demand the original of THAT photograph
PRINCE Andrew’s lawyers have asked the accuser in his US sex case to hand over the original copy of the infamous photograph of them together, it was revealed yesterday.
In an attempt to question the authenticity of the image, the Duke of York’s team want Virginia Roberts to give them the image, which was taken at Ghislaine Maxwell’s townhouse in London two decades ago.
It shows Andrew, then 41, grinning with his arm round Miss Roberts, who was 17 at the time, with Maxwell standing in the background smiling.
The duke’s lawyers have reportedly lined up a photographic expert to cast doubt on its authenticity.
The image will be a key piece of evidence in the case for battery and infliction of emotional distress brought by Miss Roberts against Andrew, 61, in a court in New York.
‘There’s no way it’s fake’
She claims she was forced to have sex with the duke three times in 2001 under the orders of the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew has strongly denied the allegations and has called them ‘baseless’.
According to Miss Roberts, now 38 and going by her married name Giuffre, the photo was taken on the night she and Andrew went out dancing at the London nightclub Tramp.
Explaining the photograph, she has said that she ‘wanted something for my mum’ and asked Epstein to take the image.
Shortly afterwards, Miss Roberts claims she had sex with Andrew for the first time.
The duke first raised the prospect that the image could have been faked in his car crash interview with the BBC programme Newsnight in 2019.
He said: ‘From the investigations that we’ve done, you can’t prove whether or not that photograph is faked or not because it is a photograph of a photograph of a photograph.
‘Nobody can prove whether or not that photograph has been doctored but I don’t recollect that photograph ever being taken.’ Months earlier, ‘friends’ of the duke had told a newspaper that the photo may not be real because his hands were too slender. In real life, Andrew’s fingers were ‘quite small and chubby’, the friend said.
The claims were reiterated recently by Lady Victoria Hervey, the duke’s former girlfriend, who suggested an ‘Irish body double’ may have been used for the photo.
Miss Roberts addressed the authenticity of the photo in a 2016 deposition in a defamation case she brought against Maxwell. She said that she gave the original to the FBI in 2011 when they visited her at her home in Australia, where she lives now. According to documents released in the same case, two FBI agents collected 20 original photographs from Miss Roberts which are understood to include the one of her with Andrew.
They gave her a copy of the images on a CD and retained the originals.
Miss Roberts’s lawyers, David Boies and Sigrid McCawley, told the Daily Mail that the files are still with the FBI.
Michael Thomas, a photographer from New Zealand who helped break the story of Miss Roberts’s claims for the first time in 2011, has said that the photo is real.
He told the BBC’s Panorama in 2019: ‘These were 5x7 photos that looked like they had come from Boots the chemist, nothing more complicated than that. They were just typical teenage snaps. There’s no way that photo is fake.’ The FBI declined to comment.
Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that the Union Flag will not be flown to mark Prince Andrew’s 62nd birthday this weekend.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport updated its guidance for government buildings by removing February 19 – the Duke of York’s birthday – from its designated flag flying days.
It is understood that the decision was made in consultation with Buckingham Palace.
Although it is encouraged that the buildings always fly the flag, on some days, like the Queen’s birthday, it is compulsory.