Pizza Express ‘held internal inquiry’ into Andrew’s claim he visited Woking restaurant during notorious Newsnight interview
Pizza Express has reportedly launched an investigation after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor allegedly visited its Woking branch during his infamous Newsnight interview.
The former Prince used a bizarre excuse to deny sleeping with Virginia Giuffre, one of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, who accused him of sexual harassment.
It has now emerged that the pizza chain is conducting an internal investigation into whether the trip actually took place at its restaurants in the small south-west London town in 2001.
Convinced that this was in the public interest, senior managers investigated the credibility of his story by searching records and trying to track down staff at the time.
It was understood that the manager of the Woking branch had left the workplace and could not be found.
In fact, the investigation turned up no evidence that he had or had not visited the restaurant, BBC Newsnight reported.
The program also conducted its own investigation, but similarly found no record of anyone seeing him at the restaurant.
Andrew has not commented on the latest reports but has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor claimed during a 2019 Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis (pictured) that he visited Pizza Express in Woking on 10 March 2001.
Former Prince cited going to pizza restaurant as reason why he couldn’t sleep with Virginia Giuffre the night she claimed
Prince Andrew claims he took his daughter Princess Beatrice, then 12, to a pizza party
Ms. Giuffre was trafficked for abuse by Epstein and claimed in 2019 that she was forced to have sex with the then-Prince three times between 2001 and 2002, when she was 17.
On one of these occasions it was alleged that on 10 March 2001 he went to dinner with Andrew, danced with him in a nightclub and then had sex with Ghislaine Maxwell at her home in Belgravia, central London.
Confronted with this claim in the interview, Andrew said it couldn’t possibly be true because he had taken his daughter Princess Beatrice to a party at Pizza Express in Woking that night.
He said he took Beatrice, then 12, ‘at 4 or 5pm in the afternoon’ before spending the night at home.
Andrew gave more details about the pizza party in footage that was not included in the final broadcast.
He said: ‘I took Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking.
‘This was all sorted out by my staff who looked at the log and everything else.
‘Windfall [Sarah Ferguson] I think he was away, somewhere in the United States. And we had a very simple rule: At that stage, the kids were one or the other for all of us, most of us, that is, as often as we could manage.
‘So if one of us was outside the other was inside. Sometimes they would accept both of us, and in this particular case he was away and I was at home.’
In response to the BBC’s Freedom of Information request to ask whether any royal guards accompanied Andrew to the restaurant that day, the Metropolitan Police said it could neither confirm nor deny whether it had the information, citing national security reasons.
Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, told the broadcaster: ‘Too often we see these kinds of ‘neither confirm nor deny’ responses for which there is actually no legitimate security reason, and I think that’s what’s happening here.’
He called on the police to make an ‘exception’ in this case and release the records they have.
Andrew was stripped of his title of ‘prince’ by his brother the King last year and his manor was moved from Royal Lodge.
He was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
The former prince has consistently and fervently denied any wrongdoing.
