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Prince Andrew may have been captured on secret cameras his paedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein had in his homes as an “insurance policy” against his rich friends.

The FBI is understood to be looking at hundreds of hours of footage taken from properties the duke visited.

A source said: “Epstein kept a treasure trove of information in his safes on his famous friends.

“No one was immune. He knew it would provide an insurance policy should anything happen.

“It wasn’t just royalty he had over to his place but presidents, world leaders and celebrities.”

In another development, a lawyer acting for Andrew’s sex accuser Virginia Giuffre has said it is “critical” the logbooks of the prince’s protection officers be handed to the US ­investigations into Epstein.

It comes after the Mirror’s story yesterday when we revealed how notes made by Scotland Yard’s SO14 Royalty Protection command are kept for up to 30 years and could hold the truth about the allegations.

(Image: PA)

(Image: RICHARD YOUNG)

A Buckingham Palace source said: “The cascade of detail surrounding police log books being revealed as evidence as well as disturbing allegations of Epstein’s lifestyle of underage sex and hidden video cameras has led to a fear in the Palace there could be more devastating revelations to come.

“The enormity of the situation has hit the Palace like a sledgehammer.”

Marie Farmer, who claims US billionaire Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell sexually assaulted her in 1996, has recalled how Epstein told her about the film footage.

Ms Farmer described being horrified when he revealed to her a “media room” in the New York home Andrew stayed in.

She said it contained closed-circuit televisions set up with feeds from surveillance cameras in bedrooms and bathrooms of the property.

She told CBS in the US: “It was all videoed all the time. I asked him, ‘What do you do with all this?’.

(Image: SOLO Syndication)

“And he said ‘I keep it all in my safe’.”

It has been discovered the duke had “gaps” in his schedule on a 2001 trip to New York at a time when Virginia Giuffre was in the city and allegedly had sex with the prince at Epstein’s townhouse. Andrew denies the claims.

The dates show he was allegedly unaccompanied for several hours.

A former aide of the prince on the trip to Manhattan and Boston said there were gaps in his itinerary but was uncertain if the duke met Epstein.

The Royal Family’s official public diary, the Court Circular, shows Andrew flew to New York from London on the morning of April 9, 2001 and had the afternoon free.

On the same day Virginia, then aged 17, flew into an airport near New York on Epstein’s private jet that was nicknamed the Lolita Express.

Virginia, who was Epstein’s sex slave, also claims she was trafficked to London a month previously to have sex with Andrew.

(Image: BBC)

She alleges in US court documents she went to Tramp nightclub with the duke then had sex with Andrew in Ms Maxwell’s London home.

The prince said he was at Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey, that afternoon and spent the rest of the evening at home with his daughters.

Protection officers would have accompanied him throughout the day and kept notes of the times and places he visited. The prince, 59, vehemently denies having sex with Virginia, 35, at any time.

Protection officers are also understood to have been with the duke when he stayed with Epstein at his home in New York for four days in 2010. The prince said he visited his friend to say goodbye after Epstein was released from jail for procuring a minor for sex.

It is during this visit to New York that Andrew was filmed in the home waving off a woman who he had just let out the door.

After Epstein was arrested this summer on charges of underage sex trafficking, the FBI raided the Manhattan home.

Prosecutors say they took items from a locked safe inside. The prince’s friend Maxwell has also denied all allegations against her.

(Image: Getty Images)

Andrew’s ex-girlfriend Lady Victoria Hervey, 43, has told how she once fled a Manhattan apartment owned by Epstein amid fears she was being “watched by hidden cameras”.

The socialite, who dated the Duke in 1999, claimed she was offered a place to stay by Epstein in 2001 but “cut the trip short” over her concerns.

She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain she met the Wall Street financier in 2000 through his alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell. Lady Victoria said she was unaware of Epstein’s crimes.

Epstein was known for videoing his guests using spy cameras at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, his Zorro Ranch in New Mexico and on his private US Virgin Island.

Sex accuser Virginia Giuffre said in court papers that Andrew visited all the locations.

She claims she had sex with the prince on the island, Little St James, and that he took part in an orgy there with nine girls.

(Image: ABACA/PA Images)

Epstein, 66, was found dead in August as he was being held in a New York cell awaiting trial on the underage sex trafficking charges.

The official cause of death was suicide by hanging.

A year previously, he claimed many influential people had told him their secrets. Epstein revealed the details to New York Times columnist James B. Stewart in an interview at the Manhattan mansion.

Mr Stewart said: “The overriding impression I took away from our roughly 90-minute conversation was that Mr Epstein knew an astonishing number of rich, famous and powerful people, and had photos to prove it.

“He also claimed to know a great deal about these people, some of it potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use.”