ANDREW’S ‘SICK GIRL’ SLUR AT ACCUSER
As Epstein victims write open letter demanding Prince helps FBI investigation, we reveal...
PRINCE ANDREW described his alleged victim Virginia Roberts as ‘a very sick girl’, The Mail on Sunday can reveal today.
The Duke made his insensitive remark in a message to a friend and business associate just days after Ms Roberts described the appalling abuse she had suffered at the hands of Andrew’s paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein.
Her shocking revelations – which came in this newspaper – were accompanied by the now-infamous photograph of the Prince with his arm around her waist.
The apparently dismissive comment to his friend – who had asked how
Andrew was coping with the scandal – appears to question the mental health and credibility of Ms Roberts, who
later claimed she was forced to have sex with Andrew from the age of 17 after being trafficked by Epstein.
Last night a lawyer for clients suing the Epstein estate said: ‘Until Andrew talks to the FBI about his relationship with Virginia – and what he knows about the other victims and wrongdoers – it’s his credibility at stake, not hers.
‘Virginia’s mental health is excellent and has been throughout, although it has been severely tested by Andrew and Epstein.’
The revelation comes as:
The Duke faces mounting demands, including from Ms Roberts, to co-operate with an FBI investigation into Epstein’s sordid activities;
Four of Epstein’s other alleged victims urge Andrew to talk to the FBI for the sake of ‘your daughters and their children’, warning him in a powerful open letter published in today’s Mail on Sunday that ‘the world is watching’;
This newspaper reveals that the Prince also sent the same associate a repellent ‘joke’ about breast cancer, raising serious questions about his judgment.
The Duke made both the bad-taste joke and his comment about Ms Roberts’ health to his friend Jonathan Rowland in 2011.
The ‘very sick girl’ slur came in an exchange seen by the MoS. Mr Rowland, the son of controversial property tycoon David Rowland, had contacted Andrew, saying: ‘Hope the press isn’t getting you down to [sic] much.’
The Duke replied: ‘Not at all!… She is a very sick girl apparently. The innuendo is the problem. But there is nothing that one can do for that! Shrug and move on.’
His comment appears to show little sympathy for Ms Roberts, who had bravely waived her anonymity to tell the disturbing story of the years she spent as Epstein’s sex slave. The Duke similarly failed to show sympathy for Epstein’s victims during his disastrous BBC interview with Emily Maitlis in November that ultimately led to him quitting Royal duties. During the questioning, Andrew insisted he had no recollection of ever meeting Ms Roberts, now 36 and going by her married surname Giuffre.
But the messages between the Duke and Mr Rowland suggests that Andrew had spoken to someone – possibly billionaire Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, who is alleged to have procured young girls on Epstein’s behalf – about her claims.
Last year it emerged that the Duke asked for Ms Maxwell’s help in dealing with Ms Roberts’s claims in 2015. In an email uncovered by BBC’s Panorama, the Prince wrote: ‘Let me know when we can talk. Got some specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts.’ Ms Maxwell replied: ‘Have some info. Call me when you have a moment.’
The exchange with Mr Rowland is one of the few times Andrew has directly referred to Ms Roberts, who claimed she was forced to have sex with the Duke in London, New York and on a private Caribbean island owned by Epstein. She claimed that Andrew bought her alcohol in London’s Tramp nightclub in March 2001, when she was 17, before they had sex at Ms Maxwell’s home. The Duke, 59, has vehemently denied the allegations against him.
A war of words erupted last week between US prosecutors and the Duke over his willingness to help the FBI’s inquiry into Epstein. US attorney Geoffrey Berman accused the Queen’s son of providing ‘zero co-operation’, but sources close to the Prince hit back, saying he was ‘more than happy to talk’ but ‘hasn’t been approached yet’.
Ms Roberts last week urged him to ‘do the right thing’ and talk to US investigators. Tweeting a picture of a mocked-up missing persons poster featuring the Prince, Ms Roberts wrote: ‘Tick tock Andy – time to talk!!’
Epstein served 13 months in jail after striking a controversial plea deal over sex charges in 2008, was rearrested last July and found dead in jail the following month.
In another message to the Duke, Mr Rowland asked: ‘How is it in the trenches! Hope you are surviving.’
The Duke replied: ‘Keeping head below the parapet! Been trying to engage with the media on all fronts but they won’t listen to sense at the moment. Hopefully HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] will, finally, swing in today.’
Mr Rowland advised that it is ‘sometimes best to ignore them and disappear for a while’, but Andrew insisted it was ‘no time to hide’.
Their discussion came after a Mail on Sunday interview with Ms Roberts, published on February 27, 2011. As part of our report, we stated that she had undergone counselling to cope with her past and had, years earlier, seen a psychiatrist and been on antidepressants. Our report did not, however, detail the current state of her mental health.
During his BBC interview in November, Andrew repeatedly stressed that he had ‘no recollection of ever meeting’ Ms Roberts, adding: ‘I’m convinced that I was never in Tramp with her... I can tell you categorically I don’t remember meeting her at all. I do not remember a photograph being taken.
‘I’ve said consistently and frequently that we never had any sort of sexual contact whatever.’
Last year this newspaper revealed the extraordinary financial ties between Andrew and the Rowlands, with the Duke plugging a Luxembourg-based bank for the superrich that the Rowland family owned while he was on taxpayer-funded trips as Britain’s trade envoy.
Other leaked messages between Andrew and Mr Rowland show how the pair discussed secretly continuing their controversial business relationship ‘under the radar’.
The Duke last night declined to comment.
Prince said he would ‘shrug and move on’