Epstein files released: Prince Andrew back in the spotlight

Prince Andrew is among the high-profile figures named in newly released US court documents detailing the extensive network of friends and business associates of disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The now unsealed documents were part of a lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's many accusers, against Ghislaine Maxwell, a former girlfriend of Epstein's. That case was settled in 2017 before Maxwell's 2021 criminal conviction for sex trafficking and similar charges over procuring teenage girls for Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting sex trafficking charges.

The 900 or so documents have been made public after a judge's order to reveal the true identities of almost 200 "John and Jane Does" associated with the lawsuit, with many of those named in the documents already identified by the media or as a result of Maxwell's criminal trial.

'Always going to be uncomfortable'

The release of the documents has been "inaccurately hyped" as revealing Epstein's "client list", said Morning Brew, but being named in the documents does not necessarily imply wrongdoing, as the list names victims, contacts, employees and other associates.

Nevertheless, being named in these files from a case brought by Giuffre "was always going to be an uncomfortable moment" for Prince Andrew, said The Times.

The Duke of York was sued by Giuffre in 2021 under New York's Child Victims Act, which allowed people who claimed to have been sexually abused as a minor to bring complaints otherwise barred by the statute of limitations. The case was settled out of court a few months later, reportedly for around £12 million.

Among the now released files is a "lengthy deposition" from Johanna Sjoberg, a college student hired as an assistant for Epstein. Sjoberg claimed the prince groped her breast while she was with an underage Giuffre at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse in 2001.

In the deposition, Sjoberg described how the three of them posed for a photograph with a "Spitting Image" puppet of Andrew, which had been placed on Giuffre's lap. She described how she then "sat on Andrew's lap, and I believe on my own volition, and they took the puppet's hands and put it on Virginia's breast, and so Andrew put his on mine", she said.

The accusation may no longer bring "legal liability" – the statute of limitations has now elapsed – but Andrew may be advised "to avoid visiting" the US in case further allegations are made, said the paper.

'A royal outcast'

Buckingham Palace has previously said the allegations are "categorically untrue". But it has "declined to comment on the newly-released documents, saying it no longer speaks on behalf of the Duke of York who no longer carries out royal duties", said the BBC.

Having been stripped of his royal titles and patronages by the late Queen in 2022, Andrew has "little to lose", but the details unveiled in these unsealed documents still feel like "a fresh embarrassment", said Sky News's royal correspondent Laura Bundock. Having put in a "cheerful" appearance at Sandringham over Christmas, he may still be welcomed in royal circles privately, "but publicly he remains a royal outcast".

The appearance of the Epstein documents "is a reminder that this tawdry affair will hang over the wider Royal Family for a considerable time to come", added Alexander Larman in The Spectator. "On an existential level", it will continue to be "vastly embarrassing that a senior royal, one once believed to be the glamorous, gung-ho public face of the monarchy, has been embroiled in a scandal of this kind", he added.