The former Duke of York’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein began in the late 1990s
Husna Anjum Senior Live News Reporter and Simon Hamalienko
16:52, 20 Dec 2025
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was photographed lying across the laps of five people with their faces redacted(Image: PA)
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been pictured lying across the laps of five mystery people in the latest tranche of photographs to be released from the Epstein files.
The black and white image shows convicted child sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, standing behind the group grinning, with the faces of six other people redacted, reports the Daily Star.
The U.S. Department of Justice released the records yesterday (December 19). Many notable figures have been named or pictured in the Epstein files, but that does not imply any wrongdoing. The former Duke of York once had a friendly relationship with Epstein that began in the late 1990s. Epstein also attended at parties at Windsor Castle and Sandringham.
Jeffrey Epstein photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry(Image: AP)
His connection to Epstein led to allegations from Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and had sexual relations with the royal while she was a minor. Andrew has always and continues to “vigorously deny” accusations made against him.
In October this year, Andrew released a statement saying that the “accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family” before he was stripped of his royal titles, styles, and honours by King Charles III.
His statement continued: “I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life.
“With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me.”
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles and privileges earlier this year(Image: PA)
Police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Epstein in 2005 after the family of a 14-year-old girl reported she had been molested at his mansion.
The FBI joined the investigation, and authorities gathered testimony from multiple underage girls who said they had been hired to give Epstein sexual massages.
Ultimately, though, prosecutors gave Epstein a deal that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution. He pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges involving someone under age 18 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Epstein’s accusers then spent years in civil litigation trying to get that plea deal set aside.
One of those women, Ms Giuffre, accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters, starting at age 17, with numerous other men, including billionaires, famous academics, U.S. politicians and Andrew, then known as Prince Andrew. All of those men denied the allegations.
Virginia Giuffre claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and had sexual relations with Andrew while she was a minor(Image: BBC/AFP via Getty Images)
Prosecutors never brought charges in connection with Ms Giuffre’s claims, but her account fuelled conspiracy theories about supposed government plots to protect the powerful. Ms Giuffre died by suicide at her farm in Western Australia in April at age 41.
Federal prosecutors in New York brought new sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail a month after his arrest. Prosecutors then charged Epstein’s long-time confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, with recruiting underage girls for Epstein to abuse.
Maxwell was convicted in late 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence, though she was moved from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas after she was interviewed over the summer by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Her lawyers argued that she never should have been tried or convicted. The US Justice Department in July said it had not found any information that could support prosecuting anyone else.
