Palace and police silent as Epstein’s last hours revealed
SCOTLAND YARD and Buckingham Palace were last night stonewalling a growing list of questions about the Epstein scandal as fresh details about the shamed financier’s final days emerge.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police have been asked by Virginia Roberts, one of the disgraced billionaire’s victims, to resume their inquiries into the ‘abuse’ she claims she suffered in London.
Allegations that Ms Roberts was trafficked to London for sexual exploitation were examined by detectives in 2015 but they decided not to pursue a full investigation.
Police last night declined to say if they would agree to her latest request. They also refused to reveal why they did not pursue the allegations four years ago or if they made any attempt – either directly or through the Royal Household – to speak to Prince Andrew, Epstein’s former friend.
The Prince reportedly met Epstein in the late 1990s after being introduced by the financier’s then girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell.
It was in Ms Maxwell’s Belgravia home that a photograph was taken in 2001 of a grinning Duke of York with his arm around the bare midriff of Ms Roberts.
In US court papers, Ms Roberts alleged that Epstein – who was reportedly reduced to a ‘dishevelled’ wreck in his final days in a New York prison cell – coerced her into ‘sexual relations’ with Andrew in London.
The Prince has vehemently denied any form of sexual contact with Ms Roberts and her claims against him were dismissed by a US judge who ordered them to be struck from the record as ‘ immaterial and impertinent’.
Buckingham Palace said ‘any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue’, adding: ‘It is emphatically denied that The Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation.’ But the Palace last night declined to say if the Prince had ever been questioned in relation to Epstein by authorities in the UK or US or if he now intended to assist the authorities in either country.
In court documents released the day before Epstein’s suicide on August 1 0 , Ms Maxwell was accused of recruiting teenage girls, ostensibly as masseuses, who were then required to have sex with Epstein and in some cases, with Ms Maxwell too.
She strenuously denied the allegations, saying that although she had hired masseuses for Epstein, ‘as far as I’m concerned, everyone who came to his house was an adult, professional person’.
After Epstein’s death, US Attorney- General William Barr said that the case ‘ will continue on against anyone who was complicit with Epstein. Any co-conspirators should not rest easy’.
Meanwhile, it was reported yesterday that Epstein paid protection money to inmates to avoid being beaten up in jail in the weeks before he died.
He also used his wealth to avoid his rat-infested cell, paying lawyers to visit him for up to 12 hours a day just so he could sit in a private meeting room, according to The New York Times, which added that he neglected to wash and often slept on the floor rather that his bunk bed in his final days.
The newspaper speculated that it was probably the realisation that he couldn’t buy his way out of trouble that tipped him over the edge.
He first attempted suicide on July 23 but blamed his injuries on his cellmate, apparently in an unsuccessful bid to avoid being placed on 24-hour watch.
He spent his last day with his lawyers. Overnight, two guards should have checked on him every 30 minutes but both fell asleep at about 3.30am. He was found at 6.30 am. Staff cut the bedsheet holding him and tried to resuscitate him but he was pronounced dead an hour later. An autopsy gave the cause of death as suicide by hanging.
‘His wealth helped him avoid his rat-infested cell’