Lady Victoria Hervey claims Palace ‘did not allow’ Prince Andrew to fight Virginia Giuffre case

By James On Jan 24, 2023

Prince Andrew’s ex-girlfriend, Lady Victoria Hervey, claimed he was “not allowed” to fight the Virginia Giuffre case and that his disastrous performance during his Newsnight interview was due to his “no media training”.

The duke’s former partner, 46, also backed up Ghislaine Maxwell’s comments that the notorious photo of him with his arm around Giuffre, then 17, is “false”.

The fallout from the BBC’s interview with Emily Maitlis eventually led to Andrew, 62, resigning from public duties in November 2019 before being stripped of his military titles and royal patronages.

But appearing on ITV’s Lorraine today, Lady Victoria defended her ex-partner, saying she had no choice but to settle the case.

Prince Andrew was seen driving in the grounds of Windsor Castle yesterday ahead of Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview.

SCHEDULE OF THE NOTORIOUS VIRGINIA GIUFFRE AND THE PHOTOGRAPH OF PRINCE ANDREW

March 200one – The photo of Virginia, Ghislaine and Prince Andrew was reportedly taken at Ghislaine’s London home.

May 2001 – Naomi Campbell hosted a boat party on the French Riviera with Jeffrey Epstein, Virginia, and Ghislaine Maxwell in attendance.

February 2011 – Virginia is approached by Mail On Sunday and produces the image.

He claimed the photograph was taken in March 2001, two months before the boat party in St Tropez.

She said that she had sex with Andrew three times as a teenager, which the duke denies.

The photographs are published by Mail On Sunday.

November 2019 – Prince Andrew tells BBC Newsnight: “You can’t prove whether that photograph is fake or not because it’s a photograph of a photograph of a photograph.”

December 2019 – Virginia told BBC Panorama that the photo is genuine and gave the original to the FBI in 2011.

December 2019 – Giuffre’s then-boyfriend, Tony Figueroa, tells BBC Panorama that he saw the photo in the year it was taken, 2001, and that Mrs Giuffre told him she had been forced to have sex with the prince.

February 2022 – Lady Victoria Hervey says Epstein’s victims have told her Virginia and Maria Farmer doctored the image.

February 2022 – Experts claim that the image is real and that it is unlikely to be fake.

January 2023 – Maxwell affirms that the image is false and that he has not seen an original, only photocopies.

She said: ‘From what I know, he had no choice. Basically, he didn’t get his day in court and he wasn’t allowed to fight.

“I think it was Buckingham Palace that put the pressure on him and he was basically not allowed to fight.

“I think to the extent that the titles were supposed to be returned to him, they were never officially going to be taken away from him.

“They were only going to be taken away briefly while there was a fight going on and he was going to be a private citizen in court.”

And pressed on the notorious photograph, Lady Victoria added: “I don’t think he was allowed to say it was a forgery because otherwise he could have caused Virginia to possibly go after him, without having sufficient evidence that it is a forgery.”

“I have been in contact with the person who I believe is the actual person who took the photo and he told me exactly how it was done and that he was involved in doing the photoshopping.

‘He was made to conform, he had no choice in the matter. The photo is the only thing that Virginia has been using to try to prove that they were together but it is not him.

“If you look at that photo, I’ve actually been in this house and I’ve stood behind where they’re standing with the same furniture behind it, the scale is completely different.”

Maxwell last night drew a backlash after claiming the photograph was not genuine during an explosive interview with TalkTV last night, as victims condemned his controversial comments.

But Lady Victoria stood by Maxwell’s claims, saying: “Personally, I think Ghislaine hasn’t said anything before because she was dealing with her own legal issues and wasn’t in a position to be able to say that, but if you actually read one of her statements, in reality said in the original that he doesn’t believe this image is real.

‘At the end of the day, he says he never met her and he’s always stuck to that. If you look at everything, even when they came to an agreement…he didn’t apologize because why would he apologize?’

During the Newsnight interview, Andrew denied having a sexual relationship with Ms Giuffre, who said she was trafficked on three separate occasions by convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, including when she was 17, still a minor under US law. USA

He also dismissed one of the American’s claims, that he was sweating profusely while they danced at London’s Tramp nightclub, as factually incorrect because he had a medical condition at the time that meant he didn’t sweat.

The interview was widely regarded as one of the most disastrous in true history, but Lady Victoria said she watched reruns of the interview and that Andrew’s performance “actually isn’t that bad”.

Lady Victoria Hervey has claimed she was “not allowed” to fight the Virginia Giuffre case on ITV’s Lorraine today.

The notorious photo of Prince Andrew with Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell that is claimed to be fake

Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis was considered one of the most disastrous in royal history.

She told Lorraine: ‘He’s not media trained and this is the problem. He has not been trained in media and that was a big mistake.

“He’s very factual in the way he remembers things and the way he says things, it’s done in more of a military-style factual way.

“I’m okay with the way it came out, the delivery wasn’t what people wanted to hear, but when you replay the entire interview, which I’ve had a couple of times, the part where it’s obviously bad is where he doesn’t say that Regrets meeting Jeffrey Epstein.

“That’s where he screwed it up, but I think the rest of it isn’t really that bad.”

The duke paid millions to settle a civil sexual assault case with Mrs Giuffre, a woman he claimed he had never met.

He previously said he “doesn’t remember” meeting her and questioned the image, saying she’s “not someone to hug” or “show affection” in public.

In the interview with Newsnight, Andrew said that although he recognized himself in the photo with Ms Giuffre, he stated that it is not possible to prove whether the image has been faked.

Meanwhile, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in a US prison last year after being convicted of luring girls to massage parlors so Epstein could abuse them between 1994 and 2004.

Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.