London authorities put Prince Andrew case under review, police say

LONDON — London’s top police official said Thursday that the city’s police department is reviewing its files but not opening an investigation of Britain’s Prince Andrew, who faces sexual assault allegations in a U.S. lawsuit.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said London police working with prosecutors had already reviewed the case twice before Virginia Giuffre, one of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accusers, sued Andrew, 61, in a U.S. federal court this week.

“As a result of what’s going on, I’ve asked my team to have another look at the material,” Dick told British radio station LBC. “No one is above the law.”

Giuffre’s lawsuit accuses the prince of sexually assaulting her in 2001, when she was 17 years old. Andrew, the third of Queen Elizabeth II’s four children, has repeatedly denied the allegations.

“We are, of course, open to working with authorities from overseas,” the police chief said Thursday. “We will give them every assistance if they ask us for anything, within the law, obviously.”

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Giuffre alleges that Epstein forced her to have sex with Andrew. Her suit says she had sexual encounters with the prince in London, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and that he knew she had been trafficked by Epstein, who killed himself while jailed and awaiting trial in 2019.

British royals generally abhor appearing in court (let alone to answer for sex-crime allegations). That's been the case ever since Queen Victoria's son Bertie, later Edward VII, appeared as a witness in two court cases (a divorce case and a slander case) in the late 19th century, which was utterly shocking to Victorian Britain at the time.  

For more than five years, Andrew, 61, has vehemently denied all the accusations, and Buckingham Palace has backed him up in emphatic statements. Neither has yet responded specifically to the lawsuit.

Contributing: Maria Puente