PRINCE Andrew has reportedly launched a bid to prove the infamous photo of him with Virginia Roberts is fake.
The Duke‘s legal team has allegedly asked his rape accuser Virginia Roberts to hand over the original copy which shows them at Ghislaine Maxwell‘s home in London.
US lawyer Andrew Brettler has arranged for a photographic expert to examine the copy to test its authenticity, the I newspaper reported.
The photo was taken on March 2001, at Ghislaine Maxwell’s home in Kinnerton Street, Belgravia, London- the night Roberts claims she was sexually assaulted by Andrew for the first time.
Mrs Roberts claims she met the Duke that night and they both dined, danced, and drank in Tramp nightclub in London before having sex.
She says the picture was taken by billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein but since his death in August 2019, Andrew’s close pals have spread extraordinary claims that the photograph is doctored.
The picture was first published in 2011 after Prince Andrew visited Epstein in New York three years after his conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Ms Roberts has previously claimed a date on the back of the photo shows it was printed on March 13, 2001 – just two days after it was taken and said she has handed it over to the FBI.
It comes as the Duke, 61, was handed a date for a two-day grilling by Roberts’ lawyers starting on March 10.
Andrew will be questioned by ace lawyers David Boies and Sigrid McCawley before they interview a woman who alleges she saw the prince with Ms Giuffre at London’s Tramp nightclub in 2001, the same night as the notorious photo.
Ms Roberts is issuing the duke in the US, claiming she was 17 when trafficked by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with Andrew.
The duke is alleged to have sexually abused her at the homes of Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein in the early 2000s.
He vehemently denies all her claims and faces a civil trial in New York later this year.
Andrew has issued a defiant response to his sex abuse claims, including denying that he was a close friend with Ghislaine Maxwell, and claiming he wasn’t a frequent visitor of Jeffrey Epstein.
