The photos that have kept former Prince Andrew in the public eye | UK news
A.Allegations about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to Jeffrey Epstein emerged over several years and in various photographs. This is how they infiltrated the public consciousness and kept the pressure on the royal family.
Photo ‘with no innocent explanation’
It was filmed in 2001, but wasn’t released to the public for another ten years. The fallout lasts much longer.
The photo (above) taken by Epstein of Mountbatten-Windsor with his arm around 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre and now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell standing next to them shows Andrew in the same room with a girl who later claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was a minor, although he denied it for years.
Former sex crimes prosecutor Wendy Murphy said it was a pose with “no innocent explanation”. Andrew insisted for years that he believed the picture had been doctored. Emails released with the Epstein files this year appeared to contradict this.
In 2022, Mountbatten-Windsor settled a civil lawsuit she filed in New York alleging Giuffre sexually assaulted her three times, but she admitted no liability and has always denied Giuffre’s allegations.
walk in the park
“What does the 4th in line to the throne do when she meets a convicted child sexual abuse pervert… even if he is a billionaire?” The subheading on page seven of the News of the World dated 20 February 2011 asked this question. The story was based on a 2010 photo of Mountbatten-Windsor walking around New York with Epstein.
It was a reasonable question. It was hard to imagine that Mountbatten-Windsor had missed the news two years before the meeting that the financier had been convicted and imprisoned for soliciting a minor into prostitution.
Asked by Emily Maitlis eight years after the photo emerged, Mountbatten-Windsor’s response was that she had visited Esptein to break off contact; I thought the honorable thing to do was to tell him in person.
Her story was undermined in 2011 when it was revealed that, upon the publication of the Giuffre photo, she emailed Epstein and said, “We’re in this together.” In the email, which emerged last year, Mountbatten-Windsor wrote: “Keep in close contact, we’ll be playing some more soon.”
woman on the ground
When the US justice department cached more than 3 million documents related to the Epstein case last month, images emerged of Mountbatten-Windsor crouching over an unidentified woman lying on her back on the ground.
In one of them, his hand can be seen on the female’s belly. In another, a smiling Mountbatten-Windsor is seen kneeling over her. He is looking at the camera and has his hands on either side of her torso. The images are undated, do not contain any captions or references indicating where they were taken, and do not indicate any inaccuracies.
Arrest
Reuters’ headline reads: “The younger brother of England’s King Charles, formerly known as Prince Andrew, leaves Aylsham police station in a vehicle on the day he was arrested on suspicion of abusing public office.”
It’s a pretty bald statement, but there’s centuries of history behind it. After all, this is the first photograph of a royal family member to be arrested since Charles I in 1647.
The photo was taken by photographer Phil Noble after Mountbatten-Windsor was released under investigation after being held by police for more than 10 hours.
“He took six frames in total; two showing police, two blank, one out of focus,” Reuters reported. “But one captured the unprecedented nature of the moment: for the first time in modern history, a senior royal was being treated like a common criminal.”
