The Met Police to look into claims that Prince Andrew sought information about the accuser

The Metropolitan Police said it was “actively” investigating media reports that Prince Andrew had tried to obtain personal information about his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, through his police protection.

“We are aware of the media reports and are actively looking into the allegations made,” police said on Sunday.

Ms Giuffre, who took her own life earlier this year, said she was among the girls and young women sexually exploited by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his wealthy circle.

Prince Andrew has not commented on the reports but has consistently denied all allegations against him. Buckingham Palace has been approached for comment.

Ms Giuffre also claims she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times, including when she was 17 at his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell’s home in London in 2001.

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges related to Epstein, her ex-boyfriend.

According to the Mail on Sunday, Prince Andrew asked his police protection officer to investigate her just before the newspaper published a photo of Ms Giuffre’s first meeting with the prince in February 2011.

The newspaper claims he gave the employee her date of birth and a confidential social security number.

The Sunday Telegraph also claimed that Prince Andrew “tried to dig up dirt” on Ms Giuffre.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, speaking on BBC One’s Laura Kuensberg on Sunday, called it “deeply worrying”, adding that if true, “this is absolutely not the way personal protection officers should be used”.

On Friday, Prince Andrew announced that he had voluntarily decided not to use his titles and was giving up his membership of the Order of the Garter, Britain’s oldest and highest order of chivalry.

He will no longer use his title of Duke of York, an honor inherited from his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The Prince has now ceased to be a ‘working royal’ and has lost the use of his HRH title and no longer appears at official royal events. His role will now be further downplayed.

Emily Maitlis, who conducted the now infamous BBC Newsnight interview in 2019 with the prince, said the move was “a long time coming”, adding: “Six years is quite a long time to wait for this.”

In the interview, the prince claimed to have severed all ties with Epstein in 2010 during a visit to his home in New York.

Sunday talk with Laura Kuensberg, Maitlis said she felt “quite sick” when e-mails sent in February 2011 by the prince to Epstein emerged, suggesting their friendship was not over.

She had questioned Prince Andrew about his decision to “spend four days – four nights – at the home of a convicted pedophile” to end their friendship, to which he replied that he tended to be “too respectable”.

The emails from February 2011, including one from the prince that read: “Keep in touch and we’ll be playing some more soon!”, suggesting he was in touch with him.

“The tenor of it, the idea not only that he was saying we’re in this together, but signing off on ‘let’s play some more soon,’ doesn’t suggest that he ever ended that friendship, that he ever broke up with Epstein,” Maitlis said.

“You’re left really wondering why he said that, whether the conversation even existed and how much more there is to this interview that we now have to go back and question,” the journalist added.

Prince Andrew has faced a series of scandals in recent years, including making the out-of-court settlement with Ms Giuffre in 2022 after she filed a civil suit against him.

Ms Giuffre’s posthumous memoir, to be published next week, is likely to draw further attention to the prince’s involvement with her and Epstein.

On Friday night, Ms Giuffre’s brother Skye Roberts told BBC Newsnight that his sister would be “very proud” of the latest development regarding Prince Andrew’s titles, but that he would like the king to go further and remove the title of prince.

“I think everyone who was involved … should have some responsibility and accountability for these survivors,” he said.

Former BBC royal correspondent Jenny Bond told the BBC she believed “the public clamor for more action against Andrew will continue because these headlines will continue”.

“We have to remember that at the root of all this is not really the royal family at all – it’s Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and Virginia Giuffre is one of them.”