Ghislaine Maxwell’s child sex trafficking conviction ‘doesn’t bode well’ for Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew’s US lawyers have reportedly held emergency talks after Ghislaine Maxwell’s convictions for child sex trafficking as experts told MailOnline the guilty verdicts are ‘not good news’ for the Duke of York whose future as a frontline royal is now looking increasingly ‘bleak’.

Lawyers in the US believe the ninth in line to the British throne should now be ‘quaking in his boots’ as his old friend faces spending the rest of her life behind bars unless she flips and ‘names names’.

Experts also believe that the Duke of York’s chances of defeating the legal action brought against him by Virginia Roberts Giuffre will now be even harder after Maxwell was found guilty by a New York jury yesterday. 

The 60-year-old British socialite was labelled a ‘dangerous’ predator as she was convicted of helping to entice vulnerable teenagers to Jeffrey Epstein’s homes for him to sexually abuse between 1994 and 2004. 

Miss Maxwell, a friend of Andrew’s for many years who decided not to give evidence at her trial, could now try to cut a deal to reduce a sentence that would see her die in prison.   

Andrew’s lawyers spoke after yesterday’s verdicts to discuss the fallout – but also believe the decision not to call Mrs Giuffre as a witness was ‘disastrous’ for her credibility, the Mirror has claimed, describing them as emergency talks.

Today royal experts have said the Duke of York’s reputation is now ‘a busted flush’ because of his friendship with billionaire paedophile Epstein and now-convicted sex trafficker Maxwell.

And the Queen’s continued and unwavering support for her son, including reportedly spending millions of pounds privately funding the Duke of York’s defence case against allegations of sexual abuse, risks bringing the Royal Family into disrepute, critics have claimed.

Robert Jobson, author of Prince Philip’s Century, told MailOnline: ‘Whatever way you look at the Maxwell verdict it is not good news for the Duke of York. Not only has he admitted a judgement failure regarding his friendship with the dead convicted paedophile Epstein, but it is known that he also enjoyed a longer friendship with convicted sex trafficker Maxwell’.

Prince Andrew has consistently denied any wrongdoing and is not facing a criminal prosecution in the United States – but was named twice in proceedings including by a pilot as one of the passengers flown on sex offender Epstein’s private jet, the so-called ‘Lolita Express’ because it was used to ferry the billionaire paedophile’s victims around the globe. 

Epstein and Maxwell were also snapped relaxing on the bench at the Queen’s secluded log cabin in Glen Beg, Balmoral, after Andrew personally invited them to stay.

Mr Jobson said: ‘Prince Andrew may well be innocent and his accuser’s allegation baseless, as he claims. But in the court of public opinion his association with these convicted criminals calls his own character and lack of judgement into question. Why did he spend so much time with them? What did he know of their debauched behaviour?

‘At the moment this is a civil case again the Duke of York, but I am sure the authorities will be watching the developments in this case very closely. Unless he is cleared his position as a working royal representing the Queen going forward is untenable unless the Queen is prepared to bring the institution into disrepute.’

Andrew’s biographer Nigel Cawthorne told Newsweek: ‘The verdict does not help Prince Andrew at all in the court of public opinion. The famous picture is now seen in a whole new light. 

‘Now we have Ghislaine Maxwell, sex trafficker, standing there next to a woman who says she was trafficked, next to Prince Andrew who says he wasn’t there.

‘If Maxwell was acquitted that would have helped him, indeed they could have called her as a defense witness. Things are looking a bit more bleak for him now.’

On January 4, a New York judge will decide whether to throw out Andrew’s accuser Mrs Giuffre’s civil lawsuit over the Prince’s argument that she lives in Australia and cannot justify her claim to be a Colorado resident. If the royal’s challenge fails, he then faces the increasingly uncomfortable prospect of a trial in the US in front of a jury who are unlikely to be sympathetic to a British prince after Maxwell’s conviction.     

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said: ‘Andrew was barely mentioned in Maxwell’s trial. Yet the photograph of him, Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre and Maxwell, taken in 2001, remains unexplained and is constantly reproduced.

‘He has not fulfilled his promise to help the FBI, who are attempting to trace Epstein’s accomplices. The conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell adds yet another name to the list of notorious friends of his. Every appearance in public ends up with photographs which are bad publicity and at 61, he has no foreseeable role of any sort.

‘His hopes obviously rest on either having the case against Virginia Roberts Giuffre dismissed, or ultimately in winning it. He might eventually have to settle, if the case against him goes ahead this would be extremely damaging to the monarchy.

‘Even if he were to win, his close friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell will leave him tainted’.  

One of the five charges Maxwell was guilty of related to Andrew’s own accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre. She claims she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times after being trafficked by Maxwell and Epstein. 

New York defence attorney Bradley Simon, a former federal prosecutor, said that Andrew could face trouble because the required burden of proof in a criminal trial is higher than a civil case. He said: ‘Every jury is different and the facts will be different – but it does not bode well for the prince.’ 

Los Angeles attorney Lisa Bloom, who represented eight victims of Epstein, said: ‘He [Andrew] should be quaking in his boots. Because this shows that a jury is willing to come back with a guilty verdict even if the accusers are not perfect’.

Mrs Giuffre is suing the duke for alleged rape, which he strenuously denies. Piling the pressure on Andrew in the minutes after the Maxwell verdicts came in, she tweeted:  ‘I hope that today is not the end but rather another step in justice being served. Maxwell did not act alone. Others must be held accountable. I have faith that they will be.’ 

She added: ‘My soul yearned for justice for years and today the jury gave me just that. I will remember this day always. Having lived with the horrors of Maxwell’s abuse, my heart goes out to the many other girls and young women who suffered at her hands and whose lives she destroyed’.

The duke’s lawyers say her civil action is ‘baseless’. They have also convinced District Judge Lewis Kaplan to take into account a 2008 financial settlement deal between Giuffre and Epstein, which Andrew and his team believe will discredit her claim against him. 

The jury’s confirmation that Maxwell was the willing accomplice for the late Epstein will serve to place Andrew beyond the pale for his elder brother Prince Charles, who already saw him as a liability for the Royal Family, with a return to any royal duties now highly unlikely. 

As Andrew’s relationship with Maxwell and Epstein further tarnished his reputation, it also emerged today:

• Ghislaine Maxwell could now start naming names to get a shorter prison sentence after the British socialite was found guilty of sex trafficking schoolgirls for her and her pedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein to abuse. Her family said they were ‘very disappointed’ with the verdict and had already begun the appeal process with the belief she will be ‘vindicated’;
• Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre piles more pressure on after the Ghislaine Maxwell guilty verdicts, declaring: ‘Maxwell did not act alone. Others must be held accountable’;
• BBC admits an interview with guest pundit Alan Dershowitz about Maxwell verdict was a mistake and says it should have told audience he was Epstein’s lawyer and is accused of sex assault by Mrs Giuffre;
• Ghislaine Maxwell is expected to be placed on suicide watch at the notorious Brooklyn jail where she is being held. She is expected to be moved to a federal jail in Connecticut;

‘He’s a busted flush,’ one seasoned royal expert told MailOnline, adding: ‘Unfortunately for Andrew, it’s no longer so much about evidence and proof, or what if anything went on with Virginia Giuffre – it’s all about public perception.

‘Andrew’s handling of this whole affair, coupled with his car crash Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, have made him into a toxic brand for the rest of the Royal Family. Only the Queen, who has always considered him as her favourite, remains loyal, while the other Royals are keen to keep him at arm’s length.’

A lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims says Prince Andrew should be ‘quaking in his boots’ over Ghislaine Maxwell’s guilty verdict.

Los Angeles attorney Lisa Bloom, who represented eight victims of the billionaire paedophile, said the conviction of Epstein’s madame for sex trafficking brought her and her clients to tears.  

If the judge sides with Giuffre, the case could go before a jury in the Autumn of 2022.

Bloom said in the wake of Maxwell’s conviction, she believes the prince’s technical objections ‘aren’t going to fly’. 

‘Even if there were grounds for cross-examination, which there were, they looked to the essence of the story and they found that Ghislaine Maxwell was guilty of sex trafficking.’ 

Lisa Bloom said that if the case goes to trial Andrew’s attorney, Andrew Brettler, is likely to try to trip up Giuffre by pointing out inconsistencies in her testimony – but the tactic would now be ineffective with a jury.

‘I think in his case he’s hoping that his lawyers can cross-examine Virginia and get her on some prior statements that she’s made and mistakes that she’s made. And I just don’t think that’s going to fly. I think he should be very concerned,’ she said.

The lawyer added that Wednesday’s verdict now makes Prince Andrew a self-confessed close friend of a child sex trafficker – after admitting his friendship with Maxwell in a car-crash interview with BBC journalist Emily Maitlis.

‘He clearly had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,’ said Bloom. ‘And an even closer relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell. I mean, he said it himself in the interview that he gave that he was actually closer to Ghislaine. And she is now a convicted sex trafficker. So that just brings us one step closer to Prince Andrew.’   

Attorney Brad Edwards, who was honored last month by the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children for his pivotal role representing victims and helping bring down Epstein, told DailyMail.com that Prince Andrew has been denied his ‘hope for evil to win’.

‘That hasn’t worked out so well. Maybe he will repent and provide information now’.

Prince Andrew may face another bombshell ahead of his January 4 hearing after Manhattan federal judges Lewis Kaplan and Loretta Preska ruled that a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre, which bears directly on Giuffre’s civil lawsuit accusing Britain’s Prince Andrew of sexual abuse, will be made public early next week.

Kaplan is presiding over Giuffre’s lawsuit against the prince for allegedly forcing her to have sex with him at Maxwell’s London home, and abusing her at two of Epstein’s mansions.

Brettler will argue in the upcoming hearing that Giuffre has long lived in Australia and can’t back up her claim to be a Colorado resident.

‘They’re trying every kind of legal loophole they can come up with, because he clearly does not want the case to be decided on its merits,’ said Bloom. ‘He does not want her to get into the courthouse door and get a trial. And that’s what she’s fighting for.

‘It’s very disappointing that he wants to deprive her of her day in court. If he’s innocent, he should want a trial where he would be exonerated, and yet he’s doing everything he can to fight it.

‘I wouldn’t advise him because I am 100% victims’ side now for the last four years,’ the attorney added. ‘But if I were advising him, I would tell him to come clean and apologize and cooperate with law enforcement, as he said he would do and then he never did.

‘Stop hiding behind your lawyers and let’s just get to the bottom of this.’

One of Bloom’s clients, named only as Kiki, said the verdict means Maxwell will have a small taste of how she and other victims felt.

‘No sentence or punishment will take away the trauma that we all had to endure at their hands, but now she will have to live with what she did, just the way the survivors have to live with it every day of our lives,’ Kiki said.

‘What she and Jeffrey did for their own sadistic pleasures, sentenced all of their victims to their own metaphorical prisons. I fight everyday to escape those 4 walls that entrapped me the day I was abused, and now she will know what that’s like for all of the girls she damaged for life.’

‘No matter how rich you are or powerful you are, if you choose to exploit and abuse, your day will come,’ Edwards said.

‘When I heard about Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell 13 years ago, I decided not to stop until justice was served for all of the victims. Today is another huge step. But it’s not over. Everyone else who played a role knows who they are.’

Ghislaine Maxwell was last night facing up to 65 years behind bars after jurors declared her a child sex predator.

The British socialite was found guilty of sex trafficking schoolgirls for her and her paedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein to abuse.

The guilty verdicts in New York will intensify the pressure on her friend Prince Andrew to speak to US prosecutors about his time with Epstein.

Victims sobbed with relief and vowed Maxwell’s ‘powerful co-conspirators’ should also face justice.

British accuser Kate, who told jurors that Maxwell dressed her in a schoolgirl uniform aged 18 to be molested by Epstein, yelled ‘finally’ and would not stop crying, according to her lawyer. The jury took just over 40 hours to find 60-year-old Maxwell guilty on five of six charges. She was already working on an appeal last night. 

Following the verdicts, Maxwell simply poured herself a glass of water and leaned into her lawyer, Jeffrey Pagliuca, who put an arm around her. Her sister Isabel sat behind her with her head bowed, while siblings Kevin and Christine stared into space.

Maxwell was led out of court by two female US marshals, barely looking back to see her family. Kevin, Isabel and Christine left the courthouse arm in arm, and later issued a defiant statement saying: ‘We believe firmly in our sister’s innocence. We are very disappointed with the verdict. We have already started the appeal tonight and we believe that she will ultimately be vindicated.’

But US attorney Damian Williams said: ‘A unanimous jury has found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of one of the worst crimes imaginable – facilitating and participating in the sexual abuse of children.

‘Crimes she committed with her long-time partner and co-conspirator, Jeffrey Epstein. The road to justice has been far too long. But, today, justice has been done.’

Annie Farmer, who was lured into a terrifying sex trap by Maxwell when she was 16, sobbed with joy, declaring: ‘I am so relieved and grateful that the jury recognised the pattern of predatory behaviour that Maxwell engaged in for years.

‘She has caused hurt to many more women than the few of us who had the chance to testify in the courtroom.

‘I hope that this verdict brings solace to all who need it and demonstrates that no one is above the law. Even those with great power and privilege will be held accountable when they sexually abuse and exploit the young.’

Her sister Maria, also targeted by Maxwell and Epstein, added: ‘We are proud of one another. I have spent every moment for seven years, working towards this verdict. No pay, just due diligence. I never gave up. This is the best thing I have ever had happen in my life. It means I don’t have to hide.’

Lawyers for victims vowed to pursue other individuals. David Boies, who acts for Mrs Giuffre and Miss Farmer, said: ‘The scope and scale and duration of their sex trafficking crimes depending on many wealthy and powerful collaborators and co-conspirators. They too are not above the law. They too must be brought to justice.’

Sigrid McCawley, the women’s other lawyer, added: ‘Today’s verdict is a towering victory, not just for the brave women who testified in this trial, but for the women around the world whose young and tender lives were diminished and damaged by the abhorrent actions of Ghislaine Maxwell. For too long their voices were ignored and discounted and their characters impugned and disgraced, but no more.’

Maxwell will be placed on suicide watch in jail after jurors agreed she was financier Epstein’s ‘partner in horrific crimes’. She masterminded a sick scheme to round up schoolgirls on an industrial scale for them and their friends to molest. Epstein killed himself while on remand two years ago.

The daughter of the late tycoon Robert Maxwell, who rubbed shoulders with two US presidents, a pope and a host of global A-listers, was deserted by all her VIP friends, including the Duke of York, during her four-week trial for sex trafficking vulnerable teenagers.

The jury of six women and six men took just over five days deliberating to seal her fate, finding her guilty of five of six charges she faced, which were read out by the trial judge Alison Nathan in Court 318 of the Thurgood Marshall courthouse.

Jurors unanimously believed four women, including a Briton, who gave chilling testimonies of being ‘served up’ by Maxwell for sexual abuse by Epstein.

The Mail can reveal that Prince Andrew, who is facing renewed pressure to cooperate with the FBI, did not offer any support and Maxwell’s husband Scott Borgerson also snubbed the trial. In the 2000s, Andrew spent weeks as a guest at Epstein’s ‘House of Sin’ villa in Florida – where ‘lady of the house’ Maxwell forced children to dress in schoolgirl outfits for underage sex with her boyfriend.

For more than two years, US prosecutors have been asking the British Government to facilitate a formal interview with the duke, under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. The Home Office has yet to act on the request, and a stand-off continues between the duke’s legal team and US prosecutors over the terms of any interview by the FBI in London.

Maxwell had pleaded not guilty to the six charges she faced, forcing her victims to relive their ordeals in court as her £5million team of superstar lawyers tried to unpick their stories.

Over two weeks of harrowing prosecution evidence, jurors heard how ‘giggling’ Maxwell had enticed a 14-year-old known as ‘Jane’ into sordid orgies after she and Epstein approached her at a 1994 school summer camp when she was eating an ice cream. Maxwell was acquitted of one of the four charges relating to Jane.

Maxwell had bragged of her friendship with Prince Andrew to Kate and told her she was just Epstein’s type, as he favoured ‘cute, young, pretty’ girls.

A third accuser, ‘Carolyn’, said she too had been recruited as a 14-year-old and that Maxwell had groped her breasts and bottom and told her she had ‘a great body’ for paedophile Epstein ‘and his friends’.

The jury accepted Carolyn’s story that she was trafficked.

Accuser number four, Miss Farmer, described how Maxwell and Epstein had forced themselves on her aged 16 after she was enticed to the paedophile’s remote ranch in new Mexico. She ‘froze’ as Maxwell massaged her breasts.

Maxwell’s shambolic defence focused on Epstein, with her lawyer Bobbi Sternheim telling jurors that women had been blamed for the bad behaviour of men ‘ever since Eve was accused of tempting Adam for the apple’. They painted the four accusers in the case as money-grabbers looking for a ‘jackpot’.

Maxwell did not take to the witness stand in her defence, a gamble which did not pay off. She still faces two charges of perjury that will be tried at a later date.

The New York sex abuse case against Prince Andrew was weakened because prosecutors in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial failed to call his accuser as a witness, it was claimed last night.

Jeffrey Epstein’s former lawyer Alan Dershowitz insisted the fact the Maxwell jury didn’t hear from Virginia Giuffre was because the authorities don’t believe she is telling the truth.

But critics pointed out Mr Dershowitz is also accused of sexual abuse by Ms Roberts, said that taints his opinion on the case and slammed the BBC for interviewing him on the subject without giving any context.

And royal experts said there was ‘no way back’ for Andrew’s reputation now the Maxwell verdicts are in regardless of the outcome of the case against him.

Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz both deny all the allegations against them.

Mr Dershowitz, 83, who was formerly Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer, told the BBC he thought the case against Andrew was ‘weakened considerably’ after the Maxwell trial.

‘I think the most important thing for British viewers is that the Government was very careful as to who it used as witnesses,’ he said.

‘It did not use as a witness the woman who accused Prince Andrew, who accused me, who accused many other people, because the Government did not believe that she was telling the truth.

‘And in fact that she, Virginia Giuffre, was mentioned in the trial as someone who brought young people to Epstein for him to abuse.

‘So this case does not do anything at all in any way to strengthen the case against Prince Andrew. 

‘In fact it weakens the case against Prince Andrew considerably because the government was very selective in who it used.

‘It used only witnesses it believed were credible and they deliberately did not use the main witness, the woman who started the whole investigation, Virginia Giuffre because ultimately it did not believe that she was telling the truth. 

‘They didn’t believe that a jury would believe her and they were right in doing so, so it was very smart on behalf of the government.’

The fact Mr Dershowitz was introduced on to the BBC News Channel as a ‘constitutional lawyer’, with no mention of his involvement in the case, drew condemnation last night. His claims about Ms Giuffre were not challenged by the interviewer. 

Adam Wagner, a human rights barrister, said that the interview represented a ‘huge error by the BBC’. 

The Duke of York’s lawyers will try to have the civil lawsuit brought by his accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre thrown out of court early next month. 

But last night’s result will make that much more difficult.

And royal observers believe that even a victory for Andrew at that stage – or at a full trial expected in the Autumn – would still not be enough to remove the stigma attached to his name over his friendship with Epstein.

And the sensational verdict in Maxwell’s case will have done nothing to bolster confidence in Andrew’s camp at having Ms Giuffre’s lawsuit dismissed.

‘He’s a busted flush,’ one seasoned royal expert told MailOnline. ‘Unfortunately for Andrew, it’s no longer so much about evidence and proof, or what if anything went on with Virginia Giuffre — it’s all about public perception.

‘Andrew’s handling of this whole affair, coupled with his car crash Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, have made him into a toxic brand for the rest of the Royal Family.

‘Only the Queen, who has always considered him as her favourite, remains loyal, while the other Royals are keen to keep him at arm’s length.’

Officially, Andrew’s position is that he has ‘stepped back’ from royal duties while the court case is resolved, but it’s difficult to envisage how he could once again take his place in public life in the same way as previously.

Last night Lisa Bloom, a lawyer representing many of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims in several cases, said anyone connected to the paedophile financier should be ‘concerned’.

‘I think anyone who was associated with Jeffrey Epstein, who either participated in sexual abuse, or helped him by sending girls to him, trafficking, etc, should be very concerned today about this verdict.’

She added: ‘The case [against Prince Andrew] has been filed, it has been served after various attempts on his behalf to duck service. Eventually the courts said ‘you’ve been served, move forward’.

‘Now he is trying to get the case thrown out on some technical grounds, he says Virginia is not a resident of the United States, that she’s really a resident of Australia, therefore the case should not be heard here.

‘He seems to be doing everything he can to avoid the case being decided on its merits, hoping to get it thrown out on technical grounds, so we’ll see what the judge does.’

Said it was possible that the case could be thrown out but Virginia says she has residency of the US in Colorado.

‘She has outstanding attorneys.

‘I am rooting for her and I hope the case is decided on its merits, so that her dispute with Prince Andrew, and whether he sexually assaulted her can ultimately be decided once and for all by a jury.’

That case is likely to dominate the news heading through the early part of 2022. 

At the moment, the Duke is not expected to play any high-profile part in the forthcoming commemorations for the 40th anniversary of the Falklands war in June, despite his role on active service as a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter pilot during the 1982 conflict.

As a veteran, Prince Andrew would be perfectly entitled to attend any of the events to mark the recapture of Port Stanley, but it is understood that no official invitations have been extended.

Prince Andrew was frequently mentioned by the prosecution in the trial, as a friend of Epstein and Maxwell, a visitor to the billionaire’s townhouse in Manhattan and his private island Little St James – and as having travelled at least four times on the infamous ‘Lolita Express’, Epstein’s private jet.

Few references to the Prince have not been accompanied by the photograph of him with his arm round the waist of 17-year-old Virginia Roberts at Ms Maxwell’s mews house in London, an occasion which he claims not to recall.

Prince Andrew strongly denies Ms Giuffre’s allegations that he slept with her as a 17-year-old sex slave after she claimed to have been trafficked to him at the London house. It has even been reported at one stage that ‘sources close to Andrew’ suggested the photo could have been faked.

That said, his team must have breathed a sigh of relief over the fact that Ms Giuffre was never called to the stand to give evidence during the Maxwell trial, despite being ‘available to do so’.

In a hearing on Saturday, prosecutors taunted Maxwell’s defence lawyers by saying they could have invited Mrs  Giuffre to take the stand but had chosen not to. Andrew Rohrbach said: ‘The most obvious witness who was available to both sides and who we expect the defence to comment on is Virginia Roberts, who was described as a victim but did not testify and she was fully available to the defendants. They did not call her.’

A source close to the Duke told MailOnline: ‘This was Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial – not the Duke’s. Nothing new of any substance has been raised in relation to the Duke – any mentions have been glancing blows, not body blows.’

Prince Andrew first met Maxwell when she was at university and the pair had known each other for nearly 20 years when she is alleged to have introduced him to Epstein.

She and the American financier were believed to be dating at the time and the Duke subsequently struck up a friendship with Epstein.

It was that relationship which allegedly saw him make multiple visits to Epstein’s homes and his island.

Andrew’s lawyers will bring their motion to the District Court in New York next month, seeking a dismissal. Court filings state that he ‘unequivocally denies’ sexually abusing or assaulting Ms Giuffre.

His lawyer Andrew Brettler states in the court papers that ‘accusing a member of the world’s best known royal family of serious misconduct has helped Giuffre create a media frenzy online and in the traditional press.

‘It is unfortunate, but undeniable, that sensationalism and innuendo have prevailed over the truth.

‘Giuffre has initiating this baseless lawsuit against Prince Andrew to achieve another payday at his expense and a the expense of those closest to him Epstein’s abuse of Giuffre does not justify her public campaign against Prince Andrew’.

Those who have known Prince Andrew for decades say he is a victim of his own boorish, entitled arrogance and his biggest mistake – and one which many other high-profile individuals also made, not least former US Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, was to allow himself to associate with the likes of a man like Epstein at all.

‘Andrew is out in the cold now and likely to stay there, whatever happens’ said one who has met the Duke many times over the years. ‘He doesn’t help himself with his couldn’t-care-less attitude, which makes people resent him.

‘I don’t think we’re likely to see much of him in the future, whatever happens in the civil case in New York, because he’ll find it impossible to shake off this stigma.

‘He’s likely to see out his days as a rather lonely figure riding out in Windsor Great Park and possibly assisting the Queen behind the scenes, but it seems very unlikely we’ll see him doing public engagements again.’  

Heat turns up on Prince Andrew: His big problem is this picture can now be captioned ‘The sex trafficker, the ‘sex slave’ and the Duke – taken by a predatory paedophile.’ And he’s facing his own legal battle at a hearing in New York, writes RICHARD KAY

Although his name was barely mentioned, Prince Andrew’s presence hovered uneasily over every moment of Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial. 

Twice it came up, and on each occasion it offered a tantalising glimpse of both his folly and breathtaking lack of judgment.

He was named by a pilot as one of the passengers flown on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet, the so-called ‘Lolita Express’, with all its unsavoury undercurrents. 

And ‘Jane’, one of the anonymous girls who claimed she was groomed by Maxwell to be abused by Epstein, said she had been on the plane with the Prince. 

For his part, Andrew has admitted he flew on the plane but insists he never saw anything untoward.

As disturbing as the courtroom disclosures undoubtedly were, it was the emergence of a photograph of Maxwell cuddling up to Epstein on a bench at the Queen’s picnic cabin at Balmoral — issued by the prosecution — that electrified proceedings.

Since only the closest of friends are invited to the royals’ Scottish estate, the fact that Andrew welcomed the pair into this most private of inner sanctums seemed to prove beyond doubt just how intimate they all were.

Of course, it is not the only photo haunting the 61-year-old Prince.

There is another picture of similar vintage to the Balmoral one, but in this one it is Andrew who is centre stage. 

It shows the then 41-year-old Duke of York with his arm snaking around the bare midriff of teenager Virginia Roberts while his friend Maxwell smiles alongside them.

According to her lawyers, the gamine Miss Roberts was the prize offered up by Epstein to Andrew the night the photograph was taken. 

For the Prince, who strenuously denies that claim and her allegations that they had sex — which she says they did on three separate occasions — the snapshot has, for years, been a millstone.

He says he cannot recall the photograph, nor ever meeting the then 17-year-old. During his disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019, he told Emily Maitlis: ‘I have absolutely no memory of that photograph ever being taken.’

Yet today the photo takes on an even more troubling new meaning. Consider how it might now be captioned. 

From right to left, ‘the sex trafficker, the ‘sex slave’ and the Duke’. And the figure behind the camera? The predatory paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

In an instant everything and nothing has changed for Andrew. His hopes of salvation and evading the legal action mounted by Miss Roberts — who has filed a civil case in New York claiming he abused her — rests on a hearing to be held next Tuesday.

She has accused Andrew of ‘rape in the first degree’, that he forced her to have sex with him three times in 2001: at Maxwell’s London home (scene of the midriff photo); in New York at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion; and on the late financier’s Caribbean island.

But with the resolution of the Maxwell case, prosecutors may well feel emboldened to go after others — not only those, like Maxwell, who supplied girls for Epstein’s gratification, but also the alleged beneficiaries; the men (and they were mainly men) with whom he shared his pleasures.

They may want to prove no one is above the law. A request from the FBI to interview the Duke as a witness has been gathering dust.

Little wonder, then, that the highly expensive team of lawyers Andrew has assembled in London and the U.S. has been monitoring the Maxwell case closely. 

Dozens of references were made to Virginia Roberts — placing her at Epstein’s properties, on his aircraft and her close contact with Ghislaine.

Flight logs produced by the prosecution put Miss Roberts in London on the March 2001 weekend she says she had sex with Andrew for the first time in Maxwell’s Belgravia mews home. Something the Duke has insisted ‘didn’t happen’.

The repeated references to the Duke’s accuser placed her at the centre of Epstein’s ‘pyramid’ of sexual abuse. 

They appeared to corroborate her account that she was an underage victim of the paedophile, recruited by Maxwell and flown all over the world.

Photos found after a 2019 FBI raid on Epstein’s New York mansion and shown to the jury included a topless image of Miss Roberts. 

But Roberts was not called as a prosecution witness. When, days before the case began, it was announced that Miss Roberts, who now uses her married name Giuffre, would not be taking the stand, no official reason was given.

But in London ‘Team Andrew’ welcomed the news, with a source telling us: ‘As the most high-profile and vocal accuser . . . one might have expected Ms Giuffre (Roberts) to be the star witness.

‘However, the fact she is not to be called can only lead one to conclude that her increasingly inconsistent accounts make her a less than credible witness.’

For months, Andrew’s lawyers have accused Miss Roberts of being unable to get her story straight. 

In recent salvos, the Duke’s legal team pushed for her lawsuit to be thrown out, branding her claims ‘ambiguous at best and unintelligible at worst’.

And just this week they filed a five-page motion saying the New York court does not have jurisdiction over Miss Roberts’s claims because she is pretending to be a U.S. resident while actually living in Perth, Australia, with her husband and children.

For Andrew, brought up in a family where planning and judgment are benchmarks of success, his mix of arrogance and foolishness has been a catastrophe.

Ever since that BBC interview he has been a pariah, stripped of his purpose as a working royal. Removed from charities and honorary military posts, he has been sequestered largely at Royal Lodge, his home in Windsor.

Forced to avoid public discourse, only once have we heard from him, and that was following Prince Philip’s death, when he paid tribute to his father. 

When he has emerged, to ride in Windsor Great Park or behind the wheel of a Range Rover, he has looked careworn, paunchy and middle-aged.

At times it has been hard to reconcile this Prince with the ‘Randy Andy’ figure who emerged from the ruins of his ten-year marriage — although it had actually ended years earlier — and embarked on a series of affairs that were, inexorably, to lead him into the path of Maxwell and, ultimately, Epstein.

The late 1990s were a golden time for the footloose and fancy-free Andrew. After Fergie, he had dated a string of professional, mainly middle-class women, younger than him certainly, but by no means as young as Virginia Roberts.

Frequently in New York, he ran into an old friend whom he had first met when she was an undergraduate at Oxford University. 

Glamorous, chic and with an enviably packed contacts book, Ghislaine Maxwell had one other thing in common with the Queen’s second son: an aversion to media scrutiny.

He, anxious to avoid being pictured with any new love interests; she, building a new life after fleeing to New York at the start of the decade after the body of her fraudster father was recovered from waters off the Canaries.

By then, of course, Maxwell had found security in the form of Epstein, a new sugar daddy.

According to prosecutors, she began to transition from girlfriend to managing the billionaire’s domestic and office staff from the mid-1990s onward. 

She also brought her transatlantic address book into play, widening Epstein’s social circle and introducing the wide-eyed Andrew.

Many say that Andrew was out of his depth, not just financially but also socially, in the glitzy world Ghislaine Maxwell inhabited. 

Pictured at a February 2000 party at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago country club in Florida, to which he had been brought by Maxwell and Epstein, the Duke looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

Not only did Andrew meet the future president and Melania, Trump’s future third wife, he also chatted to sex-aid entrepreneur Christine Drangsholt, who began promoting her business with pictures of herself and the Duke.

Alarm bells were beginning to ring at Buckingham Palace. Was the Prince, courtiers asked, having a mid-life crisis? Or were these the opening moves in a Cold War-style honey trap which would bind Andrew so tightly to Maxwell and Epstein he has never been able publicly to disavow them?

Meanwhile, the fun continued. Not long after Florida, Maxwell was introducing her royal friend to other characters from her demi-monde life at a New York club, where patrons were dressed as hookers and bondage freaks. 

Fellow guests included lingerie model Heidi Klum, sporting a black PVC dress, viciously spiked dog collar and wrist restraints.

Ghislaine, dressed in gold trousers and a blonde wig, explained: ‘I’m a hooker tonight. We are going on to another party with a pimps and prostitutes theme.’

In a few short months Andrew had embarked on a lifestyle in which he appeared to be rediscovering his youth in the playgrounds of the Eurotrash.

It didn’t matter to him: he was apparently hooked by the wealth and reach of these new friends and the doors they could open. 

The relationship between Andrew, Epstein and Maxwell, meanwhile, intensified. After all their hospitality, he shared some of his with them. 

They were his guests at Royal Ascot and, infamously, at the Queen’s ‘Dance of the Decades’ party at Windsor Castle, a gala to mark the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday, Princess Margaret’s 70th, Princess Anne’s 50th and Andrew’s 40th.

Later that year, the Prince threw open Sandringham for his friends, with a shooting party to mark Ghislaine’s 39th birthday. And don’t forget that Balmoral visit.

By now, Maxwell was also introducing him to attractive women and encouraging his relationships with, among others, PR Emma Gibbs and South African model Heather Mann.

Indeed, Maxwell, Epstein and Andrew appeared to have evolved a curious symbiotic relationship. Whenever Ghislaine was seen with Andrew, Epstein was never very far behind.

Both of them were there when Andrew was photographed on a yacht in Thailand in 2001, surrounded by sunbathing topless young women.

In his only public comment about this three-way relationship, Andrew told the BBC: ‘Remember that it was his girlfriend [Maxwell] that was the key element in this. He was the . . . plus one.’

Now, with his own case only days away, his focus is to reassure the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family that the vast investment of his mother’s money on his defence has been well spent.

Family members have been left in the dark about the Prince’s strategy, but understandably Andrew wants to protect the monarch from any damaging fallout from the Maxwell case.

In one regard he was right: he had promised the trial would throw up no new brutal shocks.

He may, however, reflect that, while friendship and loyalty are compelling allies, they are sometimes made at the expense of common sense. But will he?