It is a photo that rocked the monarchy and brought the public career of a senior royal to a humiliating end. Standing with his arm round the bare midriff of a 17-year-old Virginia Roberts, Prince Andrew smiles for the camera while his 'associate' Ghislaine Maxwell stands in the background.
Behind the camera is paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 rather than face justice after being charged with child sex trafficking. Epstein had already been convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking. Roberts - later known as Virginia Giuffre - was not among those to testify against her but claims to have also been a victim of sex trafficking having met Epstein and Maxwell when she worked at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. She claims to have been trafficked to have sex with Andrew three times - something the Duke of York vehemently denies.
The saga took another twist last month when Giuffre, now 41, claimed to have only four days to live after being involved in a car crash in Australia, where she moved from the US in 2011. However, official accounts of the incident have shed huge doubt on her story while her claims about suffering from fatal injuries have already been exposed as inaccurate.
READ MORE: Virginia Giuffre compared to Amber Heard by royal author who says Prince Andrew is 'innocent'
It has raised the hackles of Andrew's few supporters, who believe he has been the victim of a stitch up. He claims to have never even met Giuffre, let alone slept with her, and his allies reckon her claims in the past few days cast gher claims against the Prince is a new light.
Andrew famously settled out of court when Giuffre tried to sue him in 2021, paying her a figure believed to be in the region on £12 million in February 2022. But the settlement included no admission of guilt on Andrew's part and he continues to proclaim his innocence.
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Adding to the intrigue is the fact the original copy of the photo - which Andrew's allies claim is faked - has been missing for 14 years. Taken on Giuffre's camera on March 10, 2001, sources close to lawyers acting for Giuffre told the Daily Beast it was "not in Virginia’s possession".
In fact, the media outlet claimed in 2022 they were no longer sure if it still existed. Lawyers acting for Andrew had requested access to it to determine its authenticity - or not - but it is believed to have gone missing when Giuffre emigrated from Colorado to Australia.
It was stuffed in a box and shipped sometime between 2011 and 2016. Giuffre later claimed during a deposition against Maxwell in 2016 she had given it to the FBI in 2011 but the last time she saw it was in her home. She suggested it was now in her home, in storage at her in-laws’ or in boxes used to move her possessions.
In fact, the picture the world has become so familiar with is actually a photo of a photo. It was taken by freelance photographer Michael Thomas for the Mail on Sunday, with the publication paying Giuffre $160,000 for its use, as well as two interviews.
Thomas has dismissed suggestions it was a fake, telling the BBC's Panorama: "It wasn’t like she pulled the photo of Prince Andrew out, it was just in amongst the rest of them. They were just typical teenage snaps. There’s no way that photo is fake."
Andrew for his part, said in his disastrous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis that: "...you can’t prove whether or not that photograph is faked or not because it is a photograph of a photograph of a photograph." He added: "Nobody can prove whether or not that photograph has been doctored, but I don’t recollect that photograph ever being taken."
Among the theories put forward include the claim that Andrew's face was superimposed on the body of an Irish "body double". Whatever the truth, the absence of the original will continue to fuel conspiracy theories. And despite Giuffre's most recent claims, Andrew has no interest in re-opening old wounds by clawing back any of the settlement he paid out.
