Ghislaine Maxwell denied introducing Prince Andrew to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein

Disgraced socialite Ghislaine Maxwell denied introducing Prince Andrew to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, court documents show.

And she described alleged meetings by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre with the Duke of York as “a tissue of lies”.

Maxwell’s evidence, recorded on video tapes in 2016, is in a third tranche of files about the abusive financier to be published this week.

Epstein killed himself in his jail cell in New York in 2019 while he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Documents released on Wednesday contained long lists of names of celebrities and politicians who socialised or worked with him in the years before he was publicly accused of paying underage girls for sex.

Former US presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, singer Michael Jackson and magician David Copperfield were among those in Epstein’s orbit before he was exposed as a sexual predator, according to the accounts of his victims and other witnesses. None of those men was accused of any wrongdoing.

An interview given under oath by a woman named Johanna Sjoberg was also included in the papers. She has previously said Andrew touched her breast while she was seated in Epstein’s New York apartment in 2001.

The documents were published following an order by a US judge, who ruled in favour of the media, saying it was in the public interest for the associates, friends and victims of Epstein to no longer be anonymous.

They also contain the accounts of some of Epstein’s young victims, many of whom were still at school and who were paid to give him illicit massages.

Prince Andrew, 63, who has strenuously denied allegations that he sexually assaulted Ms Giuffre when she was 17, paid millions of pounds to settle a civil case out of court with her – with no admission of guilt.

He was stripped of his military titles and asked to step down as a working royal in 2022 after the claims emerged.

Maxwell, who was Epstein’s former girlfriend, household manager and chief recruiter of vulnerable females, was last year handed a 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges.

The socialite, whose father was media tycoon Robert Maxwell, indicated her desire to appeal shortly after her conviction, with her lawyers claiming victims had “faded, distorted and motivated memories”.

The depositions reveal that in an exchange with Ms Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley, she acknowledged that both she and Epstein knew Prince Andrew.

And she was asked whether she introduced the prince to Epstein. Maxwell responded: “That would be another of Virginia’s lies and the lies you perpetrate.

“I never introduced Prince Andrew to Jeffrey Epstein at any time ever, so just add that the (sic) to long list of lies.”

Pressed on whether she introduced Prince Andrew to Virginia in London, Maxwell replied: “I have no recollection.”

Maxwell also denied giving Andrew a puppet in his image, which Ms Sjoberg alleged was later used to touch her breast.

Describing it more as a caricature of Prince Andrew than a puppet, she said it was already at Epstein’s home.