What does the release of the Epstein documents mean for Prince Andrew?

4 January 2024, 09:27 | Updated: 4 January 2024, 10:56

Prince Andrew has been named in newly-released court documents about Jeffrey Epstein.

The Duke of York - whose connections to the convicted paedophile led to him having to step back as a working royal - will have been braced for this for some time.

The documents contain claims from Johanna Sjoberg, who said Andrew took a picture with her, with his hand on her breast, and Virginia Giuffre, his accuser.

Andrew has strongly denied Ms Giuffre's claims and says he has no recollection of meeting her. He is believed to have spent millions settling with her.

Here is what is said in the new documents - and what it means for the prince.

What do the Epstein files claim?

The files include a deposition from Johanna Sjoberg, a then 21-year-old college student who described seeing Andrew and Ms Giuffre at Epstein's home in Manhattan.

Read more: Prince Andrew 'visited Jeffrey Epstein's private island', court documents claim, as Bill Clinton also named

She had been hired as an assistant for the financier.

Ms Sjoberg claimed that she posed for a photo with Andrew and Ms Giuffre along with a Spitting Image puppet of the duke, which she said had been brought in by Andrew's friend and Epstein's facilitator Ghislaine Maxwell as a joke.

"And they decided to take a picture with it, in which Virginia and Andrew sat on a couch," she said.

"They put the puppet on Virginia's lap and I sat on Andrew's lap, and they put the puppet's hand on Virginia's breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo."

Read more: Prince Andrew set to be named in court papers relating to Jeffrey Epstein - but will not face another sex assault trial

Files released in the US show an accuser claim she was told to have sex with the Duke of York in an alleged underage orgy.

The accuser, referred to in the documents as Jane Doe 3, said she was "forced to have sexual relations with this Prince when she was a minor in three separate geographical locations".

This included Ghislaine Maxwell's flat in London, New York, and Epstein's private island in the US Virgin Islands during an orgy with other underage girls.

What do the court documents mean for Andrew?

Andrew may not face any legal fallout from the release of the documents - but he does risk further damage to his reputation.

Michael Epner, a defence lawyer in New York, told The Times he would be well advised to avoid going to the US.

"There would have to be something exceedingly important for him to come to the United States," he said.

Prosecutors already knew about the material in the files, but it was not known to the public.

"Suppose it causes a person Z to read it and say, 'Wait, that happened to me too', and come forward to make allegations," Mr Epner said.

Why have the Epstein court documents been released?

The files come from Ms Giuffre's defamation case against Maxwell in 2015.

They settled two years later but names that were brought up during the case have remained a secret.

A judge in the US, Loretta Preska, ordered that they could be released because individuals involved had already spoken to the media.

The fact that people are named in the documents does not mean they are accused of any wrongdoing, and include "alleged victims, people not accused of wrongdoing… and absent third parties".

Who else is named in the Epstein documents?

Other famous people mentioned include the former US president Bill Clinton.

Documents show Maxwell said that Mr Clinton dined on Epstein's private jet while travelling around the world. She denied, however, that the former US president ever visited the paedophile's Caribbean island, Little St James.

Stephen Hawking is also mentioned in the papers, including a claim by Epstein that untrue allegations had been made that he participated in an orgy.

What happened to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell?

Epstein took his own life while waiting for a trial over sex trafficking charges in 2019.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted of helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse underage girls.