Prince Andrew smiles on day Ghislaine Maxwell appears in court 

Prince Andrew looked happy and relaxed today hours after his friend Ghislaine Maxwell cried in the dock when a judge ruled she must remain in jail for at least a year pending her trial on sex trafficking charges.

The Duke of York was laughing uproariously with his bodyguard as he drove out of the gates of Windsor Castle this morning where he has been keeping a low profile at his lodge in the grounds of his mother the Queen’s estate. 

His smiles came despite Maxwell’s incarceration in New York over her links to Jeffrey Epstein and days after Donald Trump’s Attorney General insisted that his prosecutors ‘definitely’ want to speak to the royal about his friendship with Epstein and his alleged madam. 

Maxwell broke down in tears as she was denied bail until a trial next year and the court heard she is secretly married but refuses to name her mystery spouse. 

The shock disclosure came as dead billionaire Epstein’s ex-girlfriend pleaded not guilty via video link to charges related to his sex trafficking ring yesterday. 

Maxwell’s marriage was disclosed by US Attorney Alison Moe – and the spouse is a man who has not been named.  

Prince Andrew is involved in a war of words with the US authorities over whether he will assist their inquiries into the sex crimes of his paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein, who hanged himself in a New York jail cell last summer. 

Ms Maxwell was arrested on July 2 after a raid on her remote mansion in New Hampshire and is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn after being charged with child sex trafficking and perjury. Epstein’s ‘sex slave’ Virginia Roberts claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with Andrew three times when she was 17.

Last week the US Attorney General Bill Barr said that Andrew must speak to the FBI and his team ‘definitely’ want to interview him.

He said: ‘The department wants to talk to Prince Andrew. That’s why the Southern District has been making efforts to communicate with him. We’ve made it clear that we’d like to communicate with him’.

A source close to Prince Andrew previously told DailyMail.com that he was ‘bewildered’ by the ongoing claims that he wasn’t cooperating, and says his team tried to reach prosecutors several times.   

Speaking to ABC News Mr Barr said the government had Maxwell’s security ‘locked up’ to ensure she would neither be able to kill herself or be harmed, Barr answered firmly: ‘Yes. We have asked them to tell us specifically the protocols they’re following and we have a number of redundant systems to monitor the situation.’ 

He added that he was ‘livid’ when Epstein killed himself and that he wanted to see him brought to justice. 

‘I was livid obviously. I believed very strongly in that case and I was very proud of the work done by the department, the Southern District on that case, and as you recall, after he committed suicide, I said that I was confident that we would continue to pursue this case vigorously and continue to pursue anyone who was complicit in it. I was very happy we were able to get Ms Maxwell,’ he said. 

Maxwell broke down in tears last night after a judge ruled she must remain in jail for at least a year pending her trial on sex trafficking charges.

The British socialite was denied bail after a court was told she had the ‘motive and opportunity’ to flee the United States to avoid prosecution over allegations she groomed girls as young as 14 for her paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein to abuse.

Maxwell, appearing via video link at a virtual court hearing, tilted her head down and rested her chin on her hands as US District Judge Alison Nathan told her she must stay behind bars. The 58-year-old wiped away tears as she learnt her fate.

The judge said the risks of releasing Maxwell were ‘simply too great’, adding that ‘no combination of her conditions’ could assure her appearance in court.

The court also heard that:

• Maxwell is pleading not guilty to the six federal counts she faces;
• She used an alias and posed as a journalist to view her £800,000 hideaway in the forest of New Hampshire;
• The socialite asked to be bailed to a ‘luxury hotel in Manhattan’;
• No further charges against her are anticipated at this time;
• Maxwell kept her mobile phone wrapped in tinfoil to stop it being hacked.

Judge Nathan said Maxwell, who faces up to 35 years in jail if convicted of all charges, had failed to give a full account of her finances, which meant setting bail would be impossible.

The judge also criticised her decision to hide for the past year, including buying the house in New Hampshire through an anonymised company.

Maxwell, prosecutors said, posed as a journalist called Janet Marshall when she went to view the secluded property, which was paid for in cash.

Maxwell asked to be bailed to a ‘luxury Manhattan hotel’ ahead of her trial next year but Judge Nathan said the US Government’s case against her ‘appears strong’.

The ruling was delivered at the end of a bail hearing during which two of Maxwell’s alleged victims branded her a ‘sexual predator’ and a ‘monster’ who had never shown any remorse.

One of her accusers, who asked for anonymity and was referred to as Jane Doe, said in a statement read out in court: ‘Without Ghislaine, Jeffrey could not have done what he did. The sociopathic manner in which she nurtured our relationship and abused my trust… she would have done anything to satisfy Mr Epstein… If she is out, I need to be protected.

‘I know what she has done, I know how many lives she has ruined and I know she has no remorse.’

Another alleged victim, Annie Farmer, said she had met Maxwell when she 16.

She called her ‘a sexual predator’ who abused her. ‘She also has demonstrated contempt for our legal system by committing perjury,’ she added.

Miss Farmer, who has accused the defendant of enabling her abuse, told the court that Maxwell ‘has never shown any remorse for her heinous crimes’ and ‘the danger she poses must be taken seriously’.

‘She is a sexual predator who groomed and abused me and countless other children and young women,’ Miss Farmer said.

Maxwell’s failed bid for bail came almost a year to the day after Epstein was remanded in custody on child sex charges. Weeks later he killed himself in prison.

She is accused of grooming girls as young as 14 for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 1997, a period when she was his girlfriend.

The British socialite was dressed in a brown shirt, with her normally cropped hair in a bun, as Judge Nathan set an anticipated trial date of July 12, 2021.

Maxwell is being held in the fortress-like Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn where she is wearing paper clothes to ensure she does not kill herself.

She is being closely monitored as the Department of Justice wants to ensure she does not kill herself like her former boyfriend.

Maxwell’s legal team had offered a £4 million bail package for her to be freed from jail after she was arrested at her New Hampshire bolthole earlier this month.

As part of the package, her lawyers said she would be confined to a luxury hotel in the New York area, surrender all her travel documents and be subject to GPS monitoring.

But the court hearing in New York last night was told that along with her three passports, connections to some of the world’s most powerful people and her own fortune of more than £8 million, Maxwell has every incentive to try to flee. Prosecutors said Maxwell was ‘skilled at living in hiding’, has ‘few if any’ community ties and therefore should be denied bail because she is the ‘very definition of a flight risk’. They argued against her being granted bail, citing that due to holding French and British passports, she has the ability to ‘live beyond the reach of extradition indefinitely’.

Assistant US Attorney Alison Moe claimed that when Maxwell bought her Bradford, New Hampshire, home, she toured the property in November last year using the alias of ‘Janet Marshall’ and claiming to the estate agent that she worked as a journalist.

‘There are serious red flags here,’ the prosecutor said, adding that Maxwell had a ‘strong incentive to flee’ to avoid accountability for her crimes. Miss Moe read out a victim statement from the woman identified as Jane Doe, who argued that she was a flight risk.

The accuser said she knew Maxwell for ten years and that the British socialite had intended to ‘deliver’ her to Epstein, knowing the ‘heinous dehumanisation that awaited me’.

She described Maxwell as ‘sociopathic’ and said she would ‘have done anything to get what she wanted – to satisfy Jeffrey Epstein’.

The woman claimed that Maxwell ‘was in charge’ and ‘egged’ Epstein on. She added that ‘if she is out, I need to be protected’, citing a phone call she received in the middle of the night threatening her two-year-old child.

Maxwell has been held without bail since her arrest on July 2 at the house in New Hampshire, where prosecutors say she refused to open the door for FBI agents. When they broke in, she had retreated to an interior room.

Maxwell was charged with recruiting at least three girls, one as young as 14, for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 1997.

An indictment alleged that she helped groom the victims to endure sexual abuse and was sometimes there when Epstein abused them.

It also alleged that she lied during a 2016 deposition in a civil case stemming from Epstein’s abuse of girls and women.

Maxwell’s lawyers argued that Epstein’s death left the media ‘wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein – even though she’d had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade, had never been charged with a crime or been found liable in any civil litigation’.

Maxwell’s lawyers say she ‘vigorously denies the charges, intends to fight them and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.’

Her arrest and detention marks a stunning fall from grace for a woman once feted by New York society and counted many high-profile British names as friends.

According to reports, Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced late British newspaper tycoon Robert, introduced Prince Andrew to Epstein.

One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts, claims she was forced to have sex with the Duke of York on three occasions – allegations emphatically denied by the Queen’s second son.

After the hearing, Miss Roberts said she was ‘thrilled’, adding: ‘Without Ghislaine, Jeffrey Epstein would not have been able to fulfil his sick desires.

‘Ghislaine preyed on me when I was a child. The rest of her life should be spent behind bars.’

Prince Andrew has seen his legal team ‘ghosted’ by US prosecutors as they claim to have made repeated offers of help in the Jeffrey Epstein case – including in the last 10 days.

Sources close to the Duke of York’s legal team say they have contacted Department of Justice representatives in the US on a number of occasions since they were first contacted at the beginning of the year.

Andrew, 60, whose close friend Ghislaine Maxwell has been arrested and accused of assisting Epstein’s abuse of minors by helping to recruit and groom underage victims, was described as ‘bewildered’ by the US prosecutors claims of non co-operation.

The informed source said they had been in touch with the DOJ once Geoffrey Berman was replaced as US attorney for the Southern District of New York by Audrey Strauss. 

Ms Strauss was appointed on June 22 after Mr Berman was ‘fired’ by Donald Trump.

The initial contact was made at the turn of the year when the DOJ confirmed that the Duke of York was being represented by legal firm Blackfords.

Once contact had been established, the Duke’s team offered co-operation and asked for a framework as to how the US wished to proceed, but there was no reply. The source said his team feel they have ‘effectively been ghosted.’