The Met Police has dropped its investigation into Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein.
Authorities took the decision after speaking with accuser Virginia Roberts. The force decided to take no further action over her allegation that she was trafficked to London as a 17-year-old and forced to have sex with Andrew.
Scotland Yard has also decided to take no further action over claims that billionaire financier Epstein groomed and abused other young women in Britain.
The Duke of York, 61, is facing a civil lawsuit in the US after Miss Roberts accused him of ‘rape in the first degree’, and said she was abused by him in London after a visit to Tramp nightclub in Mayfair. Andrew has always vehemently denied the claims and his legal team is seeking to get the US case thrown out.
The Met had previously examined Ms Giuffre’ allegations against the duke but did not open a full investigation, saying the case was a matter for the US authorities.
After the civil lawsuit was filed in New York, Met Commissioner Cressida Dick said she had asked her officers to review the claim, adding: ‘No one is above the law.’
But a Met spokesman said last night: ‘As a matter of procedure, MPS officers reviewed a document released in August 2021 as part of a US civil action. This review has concluded and we are taking no further action.’
The decision comes after the Duke of York’s siblings – Charles, Edward and Anne – are said to have had a ‘closed the door’ on the prospect of him making a return to public life;
Sources say, Prince William, who is ‘no fan of Uncle Andrew’, branded him a ‘threat to the royal family;
Prince Andrew is privately preparing to hand over ‘personal documents’ for a civil case filed in New York against him by Virginia Roberts-Giuffre;
A US District Judge granted permission for the duke’s lawyers to receive a copy of a confidential agreement between Epstein and Ms Giuffre.
The document referred to is the civil lawsuit filed by Miss Roberts in a New York court on August 9, in which she accused Prince Andrew of sexually abusing her when she was 17.
It was stated in the lawsuit that she was forced to have sex with him at socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s townhouse in Mayfair.
Miss Roberts also claims she was forced to have sex with Andrew at Epstein’s mansion in New York and on Little St James, his private island in the Caribbean.
She alleges she was ‘trafficked’ to London in March 2001, where she was photographed next to Andrew in Maxwell’s house.
Prince Andrew has repeatedly denied her account of events.
