At several points over the past decade the British police decided not to investigate accusations that Jeffrey Epstein had trafficked Virginia Giuffre to Britain and forced her to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Prince Andrew.
As early as 2015, Ms. Giuffre told the Metropolitan Police, the force that covers London, that Mr. Epstein and his longtime accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, had flown her to the city in 2001 and made her have sex with Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor at Ms. Maxwell’s home in the capital.
The police told The New York Times this week that they had interviewed Ms. Giuffre on three separate occasions following her allegations, twice in 2015 and once in 2016, but decided against a criminal investigation.
In 2019, 2021 and 2022, as new information emerged through the U.S. federal prosecutions of Mr. Epstein and later of Ms. Maxwell, as well as through civil cases and media interviews, the police in London reviewed their original decision. Each time, they decided not to investigate.
The question of why no action was taken has drawn greater scrutiny since the U.S. Justice Department released millions of documents relating to Mr. Epstein. In the weeks since, the British police have arrested a former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, and Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor. Both men were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office over emails to Mr. Epstein that may have contained confidential government information, though neither have been charged and both deny any criminal wrongdoing.
Among the documents released in January by the Justice Department is a May 4, 2015, letter to the Metropolitan Police from Paul G. Cassell, a lawyer who was then representing Ms. Giuffre.
The letter says that Ms. Giuffre, whose name is redacted in the file, was transported to London in March 2001 by Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell after two years of previous sexual abuse by the pair, during which they had “groomed her to perform sexual acts for their powerful friends.”
The letter included a copy of a photograph of Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor with his arm around the waist of Ms. Giuffre, who was then 17, while Ms. Maxwell smiles nearby. “The date on the photograph shows that it was developed on March 13, 2001,” Mr. Cassell wrote, adding that he had access to the original.
The letter also noted that Ms. Giuffre had been “lent” to Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor for sex in London. Also included was a first-person statement from Ms. Giuffre describing the abuse and naming other individuals involved in trafficking and exploiting girls and young women.
Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Ms. Giuffre. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Cassell said that at the time of the letter, he and Ms. Giuffre’s other lawyers were fighting for accountability after a 2008 plea deal allowed Mr. Epstein to receive a short prison sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
“We were trying to think if there was a new opportunity to present Virginia’s allegations to another authority with jurisdiction over them, and I came up with the idea that Scotland Yard would be appropriate,” Mr. Cassell, who is a law professor at the University of Utah, said in a phone interview last month. “There was photographic evidence of her whereabouts in London and flight logs confirming that she had been trafficked from the U.S. into the U.K.”
Mr. Cassell said that the Metropolitan Police replied to his letter “after an extended period of time” and conducted a video interview with Ms. Giuffre.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said that during their three interviews with Ms. Giuffre and with other potential victims of Mr. Epstein that it contacted, “no allegation of criminal conduct was made against any U.K.‑based individual.” The police said that Ms. Giuffre had stated that she was “the victim of an international sex-trafficking offense.”
That aligns with Ms. Giuffre’s statement in the 2015 letter, in which she does not accuse Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor of rape but describes being told by Mr. Epstein to do “whatever Prince Andrew wanted” and then being left alone with him in Ms. Maxwell’s house. “We engaged in sexual activities there,” she writes, adding that Mr. Epstein later paid her approximately $15,000, “for what I had done and to keep my mouth shut about ‘working’ with the Prince.”
The Metropolitan Police said that it had sought advice from British prosecutors and “liaised with United States authorities, who were leading investigations into related matters involving U.S. nationals.”
“Following this legal advice, it was clear that any investigation into human trafficking would be largely focused on activities outside the U.K. and perpetrators based overseas and therefore international authorities were best placed to progress these allegations,” the statement said. “A decision was then made in November 2016 not to proceed to a full criminal investigation.”
The Metropolitan Police would not say which U.S. authorities it believed were investigating Mr. Epstein at the time, and the F.B.I. declined to comment. A memo released as part of the Epstein files in January showed that Drug Enforcement Administration agents were investigating Mr. Epstein and others in 2015 for “illegitimate wire transfers which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities.”
The outcome of that investigation is unclear, but it did not lead to charges against Mr. Epstein or his associates.
In November 2019, Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor gave an interview to the BBC in which he was asked in detail about Ms. Giuffre’s allegations and insisted that he had “no recollection” of meeting her.
Vera Baird, a British lawyer and former lawmaker, was serving at the time as the victims commissioner for England and Wales, a role that promotes the interests of victims of crime. After watching Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor’s interview, she contacted the Metropolitan Police to express her concern over the lack of a criminal investigation.
Ms. Baird said that an officer then visited her in person and told her that the force had decided not to investigate because the bulk of the case related to activity outside of Britain. Mr. Epstein had killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell months earlier after being indicted on a charge of sex trafficking minors.
“I thought it was extraordinary that the police had not investigated the presence of this girl at Ghislaine Maxwell’s house in London,” Ms. Baird said, adding that she had felt, “They should be taking more notice.”
Ms. Giuffre died by suicide in 2025, aged 41.
By deferring to the U.S. authorities, Mr. Cassell said, the Metropolitan Police had contributed to a broader failure to hold Mr. Epstein and his co-conspirators to account and to protect other minors from trafficking and abuse. He added that the British authorities had missed a chance to pursue a case three years before Mr. Epstein was indicted in New York.
“If you’re serious about fighting international sex trafficking, this case should have been a high priority for the Metropolitan Police or any agency,” he said.
Some legal experts pointed out that aside from trafficking, deciding what specific criminal charges might apply in relation to the events that Ms. Giuffre said had taken place in Britain was complicated. In Britain, the age of consent is 16, as opposed to 17 or 18 in some U.S. states. And the exchange of sexual services for money is legal in some circumstances in Britain — although inciting someone to become a prostitute or controlling them for financial gain is against the law, as is paying for sex with someone who has been exploited.
Ian Kelcey, a British criminal lawyer who specializes in cases involving sex offenses, said that the evidence bar to bring a prosecution for the allegations reported by Ms. Giuffre would have been high.
“It’s not an offense in English law for a man to have sexual relations with a woman who is over 16,” he said. “It may be an offense if that person has been trafficked, but that requires a lot of proof.”
Mr. Kelcey added that proving a lack of consent was difficult “if you’re in a situation of, ‘He said, she said,’ which is very often the case.”
It would be “nigh on impossible” to bring a prosecution for the allegations reported by Ms. Giuffre after her death, Mr. Kelcey said.
On Feb. 20, the Metropolitan Police announced that, after the release of the latest Epstein files, it was assessing documents showing that London airports “may have been used to facilitate human trafficking and sexual exploitation” by Mr. Epstein. The police force said it was also speaking to Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor’s former royal protection officers about anything they may have witnessed.
The police said this week that it had “not received any additional evidence that would support reopening the investigation” into Ms. Giuffre’s allegations, adding, “As with any other matter, should new and relevant information be brought to our attention, including in any information resulting from the release of material in the U.S., this will be assessed.”
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