American tells BBC she was told to have sex with royal by Jeffrey Epstein’s friend Ghislaine Maxwell

A beleaguered Prince Andrew faced fresh embarrassment after his accuser Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked as a teenager to have sex with him, appeared on television to implore the British public to “not accept this as being OK”.

In her first UK broadcast interview, Giuffre repeated allegations she had sex with the prince when she was aged 17 on the instructions of Ghislaine Maxwell, a socialite and close friend of the US financier and sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in August.

The prince, 59, whose relationship with Epstein has led to him standing down from public duties, has consistently and categorically denied the allegations, which Buckingham Palace said were “false and without foundation”.

BBC Panorama said it had uncovered a 2015 email from Andrew to Maxwell asking for help dealing with the allegations by Giuffre, previously Virginia Roberts. He wrote: “Let me know when we can talk. Got some specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts,” to which Maxwell replied: “Have some info. Call me when you have a moment.”

In the interview that was broadcast on Monday, Giuffre said: “I implore the people in the UK to stand up beside me, to help me fight this fight, to not accept this as being OK.

“This is not some sordid sex story. This is a story of being trafficked. This is a story of abuse and this is a story of your guy’s royalty.”

Profile Who was Jeffrey Epstein? Show Hide Born in Brooklyn in 1953, Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender and financier who died in jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial for the sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York. He had previously served 13 months in jail after being convicted in 2008 of procuring an underage girl for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute. A medical examiner declared Epstein's death a suicide. His death came after unsealed documents in New York revealed the extent of his abuse of young women at his home in Palm Beach, New York and the Virgin Islands. An earlier attempt to prosecute him on similar charges had collapsed when authorities granted him an unusually generous deal to plead guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida.

Epstein made his name at the investment bank Bear Stearns before opening his own firm in 1982, managing money for clients with wealth in excess of $1bn. The business came with an intensive social schedule. Epstein positioned himself as a party figure in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida, and courted the rich, famous and powerful across America and the world.

Epstein’s circle of friends and acquaintances has included Donald Trump; Bill Clinton; Prince Andrew; Leslie Wexner, founder of the company that owns the Victoria’s Secret lingerie brand; and many other prominent names in law, entertainment and politics. In July 2020, his long-term confidante and personal assistant Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested by the FBI on charges related to Epstein's sex crimes. Photograph: New York State Sex Offender Registry

Panorama’s The Prince and the Epstein Scandal claimed five of Epstein’s victims, who are suing the financier’s estate, want Andrew to give witness evidence in their court cases, and that he could have important evidence about Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. Subpoenas could be served if he visits the US.

Lawyers for the victims have twice written to the royal requesting an interview, but have yet to receive a response, it said.

Giuffre, now 35, says she was recruited to train as a masseuse by Maxwell while working as a locker-room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. She alleges she had sex with Andrew on three occasions between 2001 and 2002.

She repeated her claims that she was instructed to have sex with Andrew after he bought her a drink and asked her to dance at Tramp nightclub in London in 2001.

Of that alleged encounter, she said Andrew was “the most hideous dancer I’ve ever seen in my life” and that she was “grossed out” because “this guy was sweating all over me … his sweat was like it was raining basically”.

After they left the club, she claimed, Maxwell told her “that I have to do for Andrew what I do for Jeffrey, and that just made me sick”. She alleges that later that evening, she had sex with Andrew at Maxwell’s house in Belgravia.

She said the alleged sexual encounter started in a bath, but “it didn’t last very long, the whole entire procedure. It was disgusting. He wasn’t mean or anything. But he got up and he said ‘thanks’ and walked out, and I sat there in bed just horrified and ashamed and felt dirty.” The next day, she claimed, Maxwell told her she had done “a really good job”.

Giuffre said it was a “wicked” and “scary” time in her life. “I had just been abused by a member of the royal family.”

She said: “I just didn’t expect it from royalty. I didn’t expect it from someone that people look up to and admire in the royal family … I couldn’t comprehend how the highest levels of the government, powerful people, were allowing this to happen, not only allowing it to happen but participating in it.”

She was interviewed by Panorama last month. Before the footage was ready to air, the prince agreed to an interview with BBC’s Newsnight. The fallout from that disastrous interview led to him being forced to withdraw from public life.

Though Giuffre does not directly address Andrew’s account in her interview, which had already been filmed, Panorama said she stood by every word.

Asked about alleged “inconsistencies” in her account, Giuffre said she might have a “foggy memory” about dates or places, but not about someone’s face.

Timeline Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew Show Hide

In the early 90s, Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of British media tycoon Robert Maxwell, met investment banker and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Their relationship was initially romantic, but it evolved into something more akin to that of Maxwell being a close friend, confidante and personal assistant. The Duke of York, Prince Andrew, was reportedly introduced to Epstein through their mutual friend Maxwell in 1999, and Epstein reportedly visited the Queen’s private retreat in Aberdeenshire. Some have suggested the introduction was made earlier. A 2011 letter to the Times of London from the prince’s then private secretary, Alastair Watson, suggests Andrew and Epstein knew each other from the early 90s. Andrew, Maxwell and Epstein are seen together at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Later that year, Epstein and Maxwell attend a joint birthday party at Windsor Castle hosted by the Queen. Andrew and Epstein holiday together and are pictured on a yacht in Phuket, Thailand, surrounded by topless women. The Times of London reported the prince’s holiday was paid for by Epstein. In the same year, Virginia Giuffre, then 17, claims to have had sex with Andrew in Maxwell’s home in Belgravia, London. Giuffre, whose surname was Roberts at the time of the alleged incidents, says she slept with Andrew twice more, at Epstein’s New York home and at an “orgy” on his private island in the Caribbean. Epstein is jailed for 18 months by a Florida state court after pleading guilty to prostituting minors. Soon after his release, Epstein is visited by Andrew in New York. The pair are photographed together in Central Park. Footage emerges years later, reportedly shot on 6 December, that appears to show Andrew inside Epstein’s Manhattan mansion waving goodbye to a woman from behind a door. Andrew quits his role as UK trade envoy following a furore over the Central Park photos. Allegations that Andrew had sex with Giuffre emerge in court documents in Florida related to Epstein. The papers say she was forced to have sex with Andrew when she was 17, which is under the age of consent under Florida law. Buckingham Palace denies the allegations. The claims against Andrew are later struck from US civil court records following a federal judge’s ruling. Andrew is accused of sexual impropriety by a second alleged Epstein victim, Johanna Sjoberg. She claims he touched her breast at the billionaire’s Manhattan apartment in 2001. Buckingham Palace says the allegations are 'categorically untrue'. Epstein is found dead in his jail cell after being re-arrested and charged with sex trafficking. A medical examiner says the death was a suicide. A pilot on Epstein’s private jet later that month claims Andrew was a passenger on past flights with the financier and Giuffre. Andrew takes part in a disastrous BBC TV interview during which he claims he could not have had sex with Giuffre because he was at home after a visit to Pizza Express in Woking, and that her description of his dancing with her beforehand could not be true because he was unable to sweat, and that he had "no recollection of ever meeting this lady". After several days of negative reaction, Andrew announces he is to step back from public duties 'for the foreseeable future'. US prosecutor Geoffrey Berman gives a public statement suggesting there has been 'zero cooperation' with the investigation from Andrew. After Berman again claims the prince has 'completely shut the door' on cooperating with the US investigation in March, lawyers for Andrew insist he has repeatedly offered to cooperate and accuse US prosecutors of misleading the public and breaching confidentiality. Maxwell, who has seldom been seen in public in recent years, is arrested by the FBI on charges related to Epstein. Unsealed testimony from a 2015 civil case reveal a series of claims about her role in Epstein sex-trafficking ring, including allegations that she trained underage girls as sex slaves.

In his Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, Andrew said: “I can categorically tell you it never happened. I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady – none whatsoever.”

He claimed he had a medical condition that meant he did not sweat, and argued sex could not have taken place, insisting he had been at a Pizza Express in Woking on the same day.

Asked about a 2001 photograph that appears to show him with his arm around Giuffre’s waist, the prince said he did not recall it being taken, saying: “That’s me, but whether that’s my hand.” He added that it was difficult to prove if it was fake or not because “it’s a photograph of a photograph of a photograph”.

Giuffre said the now infamous photograph, first published in 2011 by the Mail on Sunday, which paid her $160,000 (£120,000) for her story, was genuine. She said she gave the original to the FBI in 2011.

The programme claimed a redacted court document shows she gave 20 photos to the FBI, which were scanned front and back. But only 19 photos were shown in the publicly available documents. Panorama had been told two missing reference numbers related to the Andrew photo, and that it was removed from the public document to protect his privacy.

Freelance photographer Michael Thomas, who first copied the 2001 photograph, claimed it was genuine, and told Panorama he found the original in 2011 in a bundle of 20 photos Giuffre handed to him from her travels with Epstein and Maxwell.

Another of Epstein’s victims, Sarah Ransome, alleged in Panorama that Maxwell “controlled the girls. She was like the madam. She was like the nuts and bolts of the sex trafficking operation.”

Profile Who is Ghislaine Maxwell? Show Hide Born in Maisons-Laffitte, Île-de-France, in 1961, Ghislaine Maxwell is the youngest of the nine children of Betty and Robert Maxwell, the media tycoon owner of the Mirror Group. Ghislaine was rumoured to be his favourite child, and the former Labour MP named his £15m ($18.6m) yacht Lady Ghislaine after her. He put his daughter in charge of the football club he owned, Oxford United, and when he acquired the New York Daily News, he reportedly sent Ghislaine to warm up Manhattan society for his arrival. Following her father’s death in 1991 – after apparently falling overboard from Lady Ghislaine near the Canary Islands – Ghislaine Maxwell flew to New York onboard a Concorde. She left behind a huge uproar over $460m found to be missing from her father’s companies’ pensions funds. Her family’s wealth, status and influence considerably depleted, Maxwell found something of a replacement in her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Their relationship was initially romantic, but it evolved into something more akin to that of a close friend, confidante and personal assistant. Epstein was later convicted of sex offences, and subsequently died in prison in 2019. In 2015, Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers, sued Maxwell, alleging Epstein's confidante defamed her by claiming she was a liar in her accusations against the pair. Giuffre has accused Maxwell of recruiting her to work as Epstein’s masseuse at the age 15, when she was a locker-room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in south Florida. Documents released as part of the lawsuit contain lurid claims about the alleged sex trafficking. In July 2020, after having been in hiding, Maxwell was arrested by the FBI on charges related to Jeffrey Epstein. She has pleaded not guilty, was refused bail, and will remain in custody. She is charged in a 17-page indictment with conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and perjury. If convicted, Maxwell faces up to 35 years in federal prison. Photograph: Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images North America

Maxwell has denied the allegations made against her. She has not been seen in public for months, amid speculation over her continued contact with the prince.

Andrew has said he did not see, witness or suspect any suspicious behaviour during his visits to Epstein’s homes in Florida, New York and the Caribbean.

Buckingham Palace has said the prince “unequivocally regrets his ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein”, and that he “deeply sympathises with those affected who want some form of closure”.

It added: “It is emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation.”

Giuffre’s interview was broadcast as the prince faces calls for a parliamentary inquiry into his business dealings, after the Mail on Sunday claimed he had been enabling a friend’s business interests while working as a British trade envoy.

The newspaper said it had seen a cache of documents, including leaked emails, about Andrew’s links with David Rowland, and claimed the prince had been helping his business interests, including promoting his private bank, while a trade envoy for Britain.