Prince Andrew asked for evidence of 'inability to sweat' by Virginia Giuffre's lawyers
31 December 2021, 16:16
Prince Andrew has been asked to provide evidence of his alleged inability to sweat by lawyers representing a woman who is suing him for allegedly sexually assaulting her.
Virginia Giuffre's legal team has requested a wealth of information from Andrew's lawyers as they probe his BBC Newsnight interview when he said he was visiting a Pizza Express on the day of the claimed sexual encounter.
Virginia Giuffre's legal team made the request as part of a civil case against the prince in a New York court where Ms Giuffre, 38, alleges that Prince Andrew sexually assaulted her as a teenager.
She claims she was trafficked by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with the duke and was pictured with the royal and his friend Ghislaine Maxwell during the period the alleged intercourse took place.
Ms Giuffre has alleged in the past she had sex with Andrew in London and New York when she was aged 17, a minor under US law, and again aged 18 on a private Caribbean island owned by Epstein where an orgy took place.
Prince Andrew has denied all the allegations.
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Convicted sex offender Epstein was found dead in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial whilst Maxwell was convicted in America on Wednesday of helping to entice vulnerable teenagers to the properties of Epstein for him to sexually abuse between 1994 and 2004.
Lawyers have also requested travel documents detailing Andrew's movements on Epstein's planes and to his various homes, the duke's visit to Pizza Express in Woking and London's Tramp nightclub where Ms Giuffre alleges she danced with a heavily sweating Andrew before they had sex.
But the Duke's legal team have rejected the requests for the documents citing various reasons, including the information is protected from disclosure by rights of privacy under the US constitution and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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His lawyers also state in papers filed to a New York court, the documents requested are already publicly available or the requests are "unduly burdensome, oppressive... duplicative and over broad".
In response to the decision not to provide information, Ms Giuffre's legal team said in court documents: "If Prince Andrew truly has no documents concerning his communications with Maxwell or Epstein, his travel to Florida, New York, or various locations in London, his alleged medical inability to sweat, or anything that would support the alibis he gave during his BBC interview, then continuing with discovery will not be burdensome to him at all."
