ANDREW QUIZ PRESSURE AS EPSTEIN ‘FIXER’ PAL CHARGED
Police could summon duke to help child-sex probe in France
VISIT
Andrew, Virginia and Maxwell
Patrick Hill
Prince Andrew could be summoned to face questioning by French police after Jeffrey Epstein’s “sex fixer” was charged with raping children.
Pressure on the Duke intensified with the charges against model agency boss Jean Luc Brunel – who allegedly supplied girls to Andrew’s paedo pal Jeffrey Epstein.
Brunel – charged with the rape of minors and sexual harassment – was held in Paris as he was about to fly to Africa.
His alleged victims include Virginia Giuffre, who says she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew in London when she was 17.
It is also claimed Brunel, 74, supplied eight girls for an orgy on billionaire Epstein’s Caribbean island Little St James, which the Duke is accused of attending.
The charges came days after fashion tycoon Peter Nygard, 79 – an associate of Andrew – was held on sex charges.
And Ghislaine Maxwell, 58 – the Duke’s friend and Epstein’s former lover – is launching a new bail bid in New York, where she is held on underage sex charges.
Maxwell was once pictured play-wrestling with Brunel on Epstein’s island.
A French investigating source said last night: “We have issued numerous appeals for witnesses to come forward and Prince Andrew is clearly a witness to Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct.
“Andrew is said to have visited Epstein’s home in Paris and had relations with the victims Brunel is accused of abusing.
“His testament is accordingly crucial to the investigation and he could be summoned.”
Brunel was remanded after he was charged on Friday. It is said many alleged offences took place at Epstein’s £7million Paris f lat – a whistleblower has claimed Andrew stayed there “a number of times, including when Epstein was not there”. It is believed prosecutors could apply for Andrew to travel to France for questioning but his royal status is likely to create difficulties. The FBI has made it clear it wants to interview both Brunel and Andrew.
Brunel ran model agency MC2, which prosecutors bel ieve Epstein – who killed himself in jail last year – used as a cover for his abuse.
Among the victims Brunel is accused of providing for Epstein were 12-year- old Paris triplets as a “birthday present”.
In US court documents, Giuffre, 37, said she and Brunel had sex “many times when I was 16 through 19”.
She has also claimed: “Jeffrey Epstein told me he slept with over 1000 of Brunel’s girls.”
Meanwhile, she yesterday fired off a tweet saying: “The kettle is boiling and it’s about to blow the lid off so MANY PEOPLE!!”
Andrew, 60 – seen out riding at Windsor yesterday – strongly denies wrongdoing. His spokesman declined to comment. Brunel’s lawyer Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt says her client is not guilty of wrongdoing.