The Foreign & Commonwealth Office is believed to be in ‘damage control mode‘, aggressively lobbying the U.S authorities to have prince Andrew, the queen’s favourite son, cleared from the serious allegations of child abuse he is the subject of in the Jeffrey Epstein case, according to an FCO source.

According to the same source, the situation has made the British officials involved in the case feeling awkward about being forced to defend an alleged pedophile.

Yesterday, the British monarchy denied any involvement of Prince Andrew in child abuse despite the victim’s testimony. The monarch’s spokesperson was quoted as saying: “Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue“.

The Queen’s son is accused of sexual assault on minors, and new documents made public by a court in Manhattan on August 9th suggest the prince could indeed have committed the crimes. The Duke of York as well as billionaire Jeffrey Epstein and other personalities were named in the unsealed documents. The documents quote Ghislaine Maxwell, who was dating the sex offender: she is believed to have provided him and his circle of celebrity friends with underage girls, a circle which included Prince Andrew amongst other high profile individuals such as an undisclosed foreign Prime Minister.

Imperium (2018) looks at similar cases across the world, including the Dutroux case. The case was characterised by the complicity of law enforcement and high ranking Belgian officials in a major child abuse ring. Some of the witnesses’ deaths were wrongly deemed as suicides and the investigation was inexplicably shut down by the government shortly after its start.

Virginia Giuffre, one of the accusers, claimed that Jeffrey Epstein forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew. She is adamant that she slept with him in 2015, in New York and London, when she was only 17 years old. The Duke of York denies the claims.

“Andrew put his hands on my chest“

According to another testimony quoted by the British press, in 2001, the dad of Beatrice and Eugenie allegedly touched the chest of a young woman in Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan manor, Epstein was arrested in July for pimping on minors. Johanna Sjoberg was then a “young student at university“.

“I just remember someone offering to take a picture, I was told to go on the couch, Andrew and Virginia sat down, put a puppet on her lap, and I sat down on Andrew’s, then they put the puppet’s hands on Virginia’s chest, and Andrew put his on mine” she stated at the time. Johanna Sjoberg also claims to have been brought to Jeffrey Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell, she promised her that she would have the opportunity to get a “legal job“.

Self-censorship in the British media

Mainstream media, pretty much all major British news outlets, have been referring to the victims – which were clearly underage – as “young girls“, rather than “underage“, with social media users calling out the choice of wording as inappropriate.

‘Young’ is a vague term that can mean anything from a few years old to anything in the late 20s, while underage specifically refers to someone under the age of consent.

A suspicious death

Held in one of the most secure prisons in the world, namely MCC New York, a jail known as the ‘Guantanamo of New York‘, this penitentiary has just recently been the temporary home of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, a Mexican drug lord now held at ADX Florence; A previous inmate was quoted as saying that guards “monitored us like lab rats”.

The U.S authorities stated that Jeffrey Epstein was taken off ‘suicide watch’ three days before the alleged suicide.

Unsealed court documents:

(Article last updated on: 12/08/2019)