Prince Andrew’s secret palace ‘crisis meeting’ with Ghislaine Maxwell ahead of Epstein charges

Weeks before Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest, Prince Andrew met his alleged ‘fixer’, Ghislaine Maxwell, it’s claimed.

Secret meeting: Ghislaine Maxwell, left, and Prince Andrew. Pictures: AFP/Getty

Details have emerged of an alleged meeting the Duke of York had with Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell inside Buckingham Palace shortly before the disgraced financier was arrested for sex trafficking.

Ms Maxwell, daughter of the late newspaper owner Robert Maxwell, has been accused of procuring girls for Epstein.

In his BBC Newsnight interview, the duke said that the last time he saw Ms Maxwell, a close friend since the 1990s, was in the spring or summer when she came over for a rally. He denied that they talked about Epstein.

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According to The Sun on Sunday, they met in the duke’s private quarters at Buckingham Palace on June 6. A source told the newspaper: “The duke and Ghislaine met at the palace. She brought four other people with her. They were all smartly dressed and looked very official, very serious and business-like. There was no way it was a social occasion. They stayed for about two hours.

“Looking back now it seems very likely they would have been discussing the fallout from Epstein’s misdemeanours and what they planned to do about it.”

Asked on Newsnight about when he last saw Ms Maxwell, the duke told Emily Maitlis that it was when she was “doing some rally”.

‘He wasn’t in the news’

He said that they had not discussed Epstein. “There wasn’t anything to discuss about him because he wasn’t in the news, you know, it was just … we had moved on.”

The Cash & Rocket Rally, a women-only charity event, started in London on June 6 and finished in Monte Carlo three days later. The Sun on Sunday published a photograph which it said showed Maxwell at the car rally in Geneva.

US federal prosecutors said in mid-May that they wanted to speak to Epstein’s victims with a view to reopening the case against him. Epstein had earlier served 13 months of an 18-month prison sentence after a plea deal in which he was allowed to plead guilty to minor prostitution charges while more serious federal sex trafficking charges were dropped. He was arrested on July 6 in a joint investigation by the FBI and New York police and charged with sex trafficking. He killed himself in jail on August 10 aged 66.

‘She orchestrated the whole thing’

A number of women have alleged that Maxwell, who was Epstein’s girlfriend in the 1990s, supplied girls for the financier, either recruiting them directly or planning visits to his homes. Sarah Ransome, one of the women who has alleged they were abused by Epstein, said: “She orchestrated the whole thing for Jeffrey.”

Janusz Banasiak, Epstein’s house manager, said that she and Epstein “were like partners in a business”.

Ms Maxwell has denied any wrongdoing.

Since Epstein was arrested in July she has disappeared from public view, prompting speculation that she has either gone into hiding or is already talking to the FBI.

Her last alleged public appearance was at a Los Angeles fast-food restaurant in August, although that is a matter of some doubt.

Buckingham Palace said it did not comment on private meetings.

The Times