Who is Virginia Giuffre and what are her allegations against Prince Andrew?

A woman who claims she was sex trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein is mounting a civil lawsuit accusing Prince Andrew of sexual assault.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 38, filed her suit against the Duke of York in the Southern District Court of New York in August under the state’s Child Victims Act.

The suit alleges Prince Andrew sexually abused Ms Giuffre as a teenager on multiple occasions in London, Manhattan, and the US Virgin Islands in 2001 - allegations which he denies.

Prince Andrew’s legal team have sought to have the case dismissed, arguing that a 2009 settlement between Ms Giuffre and Epstein will stop the civil sex lawsuit against the royal.

The legal document was unsealed and made public before a 4 January hearing, where New York District Judge Lewis Kaplan heard arguments on the dismissal issue from both sides. The judge said he would make a ruling “very soon”, but has still yet to do so a week later.

Follow live updates on the case against Prince Andrew

Who is Virginia Giuffre?

Virginia Giuffre, also known as Virginia Roberts, first met now-convicted Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000 at the age of 17, when she was working as a spa assistant in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, where Ms Giuffre’s father also worked as a maintenance manager.

Maxwell approached her and asked if she was interested in being a masseuse for Epstein. However, according to Ms Giuffre’s claims, both Epstein and Maxwell began grooming her.

Ms Giuffre was allegedly trafficked to then 41-year-old Prince Andrew in 2001. The Duke is accused of having sex with Ms Giuffre (then known by her maiden name, Virginia Roberts) on three occasions; a trip to London in 2001 when she was 17 for which she was paid $15,000, and later in New York and on Little Saint James, a small private island in the US Virgin Islands.

Despite flight logs and photos revealing Ms Giuffre and Prince Andrew had spent time together, the Duke has denied meeting or having sex with her. Most famously in a 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, he said he was in a Pizza Express in Woking and not having sex in London as per claims against him.

What are the allegations against Prince Andrew?

Ms Giuffre’s lawsuit against the Duke claims he had sex with her without consent despite knowing how old she was and that she was a victim of sex trafficking. The prince, a longtime friend of Epstein’s, has vehemently denied the allegations and will seek to dismiss the lawsuit at a hearing on 4 January 2022.

In her lawsuit, Ms Giuffre said she has continued to suffer “significant emotional and psychological distress” decades after the alleged assaults.

She is seeking unspecified damages, but there is speculation the sum could be in the millions of dollars.

“Twenty years ago Prince Andrew’s wealth, power, position, and connections enabled him to abuse a frightened, vulnerable child with no one there to protect her. It is long past the time for him to be held to account,” the suit states.

Prince Andrew spoke out about the allegations in a 2019 television interview with Emily Maitlis.

“It didn’t happen. I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened. I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever,” he said.

The Duke’s legal team formerly tried to have the case dismissed on the grounds that she lives in Australia, not in the US, as the suit suggests.

However, the dismissal attempt faced a setback when US District Judge Lewis A Kaplan rejected the motion by Prince Andrew’s lawyers to have the lawsuit dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.

The 2009 settlement agreement between Ms Giuffre and Andrew’s former friend and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public later today as Judge Kaplan will hear another request by the Duke’s legal team to have the case dismissed.

Mr Brettler had previously told the New York hearing the agreement “releases Prince Andrew and others from any purported liability arising from the claims Ms Giuffre asserted against Prince Andrew here”.