Sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother has said Prince Andrew had ‘no option’ but to settle with rape accuser Virginia Giuffre but would have liked to see him challenge her in court.
Last month the Duke of York paid out an estimated £12 million in a deal with her, after she alleged, she was recruited to have sex with him when she was then just 17, by Maxwell and her pal paedophile billionaire Jeffery Epstein. He had consistently denied the claim.
Key to the case was a picture taken in 2001 showing Andrew, with his arm around Giuffre at the London home of Maxwell, 60, as the disgraced socialite – who was found guilty last year of grooming girls – stood in the background.
But in an interview with journalist Jay Beecher, Maxwell’s brother Ian, 66, said: ‘I suppose we are never really going to know because it’s Prince Andrew and it’s all been swept away however this is the Jubilee year of his mother, he is a dutiful son.
‘This really causes her, it’s obvious it would any mother, causes her immense pain, he’s just exceptionally embarrassed he doesn’t want to do anything to upset the year and I think that he had to fold his tent, really and do the best he could by the Crown.
Sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother (pictured) has said Prince Andrew had ‘no option’ but to settle with rape accuser Virginia Giuffre but would have liked to see him challenge her in court
‘Do I think that he had gone the other way and given evidence ? I don’t know, I think it would have been very difficult evidence for him to give, we know that he’s, we have that example of the performance with Emily Matlis in 2019 so he’s not good in that one on one situation, and then a court where he is fighting for his life, I think it would have been very difficult.
‘However I also think that it would have been just as difficult for Giuffre as it would have been for him, he said produce the original of the infamous photograph in London, where allegedly the events that she says happened and she couldn’t produce it she’s never been able to produce that particular photo.
‘At one level I suppose it suited both parties that ultimately it went the way it went but I think that he may well have wished to take his chance and he may well have gone home on it but he had to fold his tent and that was that.’
Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts, aged 17 at Ghislaine Maxwell’s townhouse in London, Britain on March 13, 2001
Ian added: ’I think he is very high profile target but we are just not going to know, I think it’s interesting that he ended up paying what seemed a very large amount of money to her non-profit organisation and that’s unusual. maybe she didn’t want too much money coming to her personally and maybe it makes her attackable.’
In his interview Ian also attacked TV producers for constantly painting his father media tycoon Robert Maxwell as a bad man and therefore his daughter must be bad – as he took aim at the recent BBC three part series House of Maxwell.
The documentary highlighted the disgraced newspaper tycoon’s links to the KGB and MI6 and when he died after falling from his yacht the Lady Ghislaine off the Canary Islands in 1991.
Following his mysterious death, his empire began to collapse as it emerged more than £460 million had vanished from the Mirror pension fund which he had taken to prop up his failing businesses.
Ian said:’ The executive director of that (House of Maxwell) is man called Colin Barr and he has form as far as my father is concerned. He put out a film, a drama starring David Suchet, I think, 12/13 years ago so it’s not the first time he has visited this subject.
‘Personally I thought the earlier effort in 2007 was in some parts laughable, so badly wrong was it factually and the way they set out to depict things.
But in an interview with journalist Jay Beecher, Maxwell’s brother Ian, 66, said: ‘I suppose we are never really going to know because it’s Prince Andrew and it’s all been swept away however this is the Jubilee year of his mother, he is a dutiful son’ (Ghislaine is pictured with her ex-boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein)
‘I think it looks to me like there has been more effort gone into it but as far as my father is concerned there has been a thread in the whole business, this whole case where they wanted to come up with a rather simplistic view that because my father was considered a bad man, that the rotten apple never falls far from the tree.
‘Therefore they try and make this link between my father and Ghislaine to such an extent that he is given relatively short shrift and she is given a much bigger role than the reality in terms of their relationship.’
Ian also dismissed constant suggestions that Ghislaine was his father’s favourite and said: ‘They infer that because he called the boat the Lady Ghislaine, then she must have been his favourite I was there the boat was christened, it was in a shipyard in Holland somewhere, Amsterdam and it was delightful.
‘My father said to my sister ‘before you get any ideas I wanted to call this boat the Lady Elizabeth for your mother but that name was already taken and you can’t have two boats with the same name’ so that’s the truth about that particular nonsense.
‘It’s just to set up shorthand to say he was bad, she was bad and somehow the bothers got off in the middle of it otherwise we would have all been bad.
‘It’s lazy it’s inaccurate and as far as the other so called revelations of the House of Maxwell my father allegedly met Epstein before he died and that how the connection with Ghislaine is established and there’s some idea that somehow the pension fund was siphoned off and Epstein laundered them, it’s just ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous.
‘It makes for very good television I’m sure and no doubt the BBC will sell it very successful but you will notice that not one member of my family took part in this film and in fact there were every few people I regard as having some input who could have said something interesting. I don’t think the BBC have covered themselves in glory.’
‘She is shocked and perturbed by the decision’: Child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother blasts judge’s ‘loaded’ refusal to grant her a retrial after ‘deeply tainted’ conviction
Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell‘s brother says the family is ‘shocked’ and ‘perturbed’ by a judge’s decision to reject a retrial request – saying it was ‘loaded’ against her.
The former socialite and close pal of Prince Andrew was found guilty last year but it later emerged jury member Scotty David had failed to disclose he had been sexually abused as a child.
Her family and legal team say this swayed the jury to find her guilty of being a recruiter of teenage girls for paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and she now could face 65 years in jail.
Defence lawyers had hoped they could secure a retrial for Maxwell, 60, after the juror revelations emerged but last week district judge Alison Nathan dismissed the request.
Ghislaine Maxwell is pictured with her ex-boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell, 60, has been denied a retrial after her December conviction on sex trafficking charges
Maxwell (pictured in a court sketch during her trial) was convicted in December of recruiting and trafficking underage girls for the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and faces 65 years in jail
Speaking for the first time about it, Maxwell’s brother Ian said: ‘To say we were shocked is understated, clearly Ghislaine was also very perturbed by it, if I had to summarise it, the dice were loaded by the court.
‘The verdict was unsafe by virtue of this juror and the decision is deeply tainted.
‘This is going to go to appeal. It’s just one of many points of appeal pretrial, in trial, post-trial and we are confident that Ghislaine will be successful on appeal.’
He also slammed the US judicial system saying that it was always going to be against his sister and said: ‘The prosecution held an infamous press conference the day of her arrest, they pointed to a picture of Epstein and my sister, and the implication was that she was guilty which meant it was open season on Ghislaine and it’s never let up.
Her brother Ian Maxwell (above) has blasted the judge’s decision to deny her a retrial
‘There is no possibility in English system prosecutor hold a press conference and say this woman is guilty before any trial has taken place. Ghislaine was depicted as some evil moll, its grotesque.’
‘Numerous accusers who were not called in this trial, lawyers have been vociferous and none of it has been put to the test. It’s just drip, drip, drip.’
Speaking to journalist Jay Beecher of his sister’s case, Ian, 66, said: ‘It’s got sex, it’s got death, these guys dying in prison, it’s got royalty, it’s got money, it’s got famous people, young girls, everything you could dream of, all the elements are there.’
He also suggested the Me Too social movement against sexual abuse and harassment had also played it’s part in Maxwell’s guilty verdict last December in a New York court.
Ian explained: ‘This has also had an enormous impact, all women must be believed, all victims must be believed
‘But we know in this county, that so called victims turn out not to be victims, Carl Beech (invented claims of widespread establishment sex abuse) would be the finest example of that.
‘These kinds of things go on and jury verdicts have been overturned time and time again and obviously we hope this is going to happen on this occasion as well.
‘All this forms a powerful package of appeal points that for me show this trial was not fair, with on top of that the lying juror.’
Ian added: ‘My sister has been banged up now, it will be two years in July, she is in horrendous incarceration, she is in isolation, she is on suicide watch, she continues to have torches shone in her eyes every 15 minutes to make sure she is still breathing.
Maxwell was convicted of procuring underage girls for sex with paedophile Epstein. Court Evidence pics show her giving his a foot massage against the breasts on a private plane
In this courtroom sketch, Maxwell enters the courtroom escorted by U.S. Marshalls at the start of her trial, Monday, Nov. 29, 2021, in New York
Maxwell was found guilty last year but it later emerged that jury member Scotty David (pictured) had failed to disclose he had been sexually abused as a child
‘She is denied all kinds of rights and opportunities. It’s a shocker, she was already frail mentally and physically at the start of the trial and I think this impacted for sure on whether she would give evidence in her own defence knowing what an aggressive affair that would have been.
‘These kind of conditions in a first world country should not be acceptable, they are not acceptable in our country and they should not be acceptable in America but they appear to be.’
He also questioned why given the amount of accusations she has made, Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was trafficked by Maxwell and Epstein to have sex with Prince Andrew was not called to testify.
Ian said: ‘I think they realised she would have had a very difficult time under cross examination and that she could have done more damage than helped the prosecution’s cause.
‘If you have a powerful witness, whom you believe is telling the truth and whose combination of the truth and the way they can tell that truth sincerely, hand on heart, look the jury in the eye and say this happened, you are going to use that person because it’s going to be very effective.
‘The fact they didn’t use her tells us all we already know; they couldn’t not stand her up under cross examination because of the tremendous multiple inconsistences in her prior accounts on almost every subject for years. That is why I believe they did not run with this particular witness.’
When asked how his sister was coping in jail Ian admitted they family was concerned for her welfare.
He said: ‘We all have to be worried about that because she has now been banged up for two years.
Ghislaine Maxwell in June 2019 (pictured front) with her six living siblings. Ian Maxwell, her older brother, top right, shared the photo in March 2021. A month after it was taken, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and Ghislaine went into hiding with her husband, Scott Borgerson. The siblings, L-R, are: Anne, Kevin, twins Isabel and Christine, Philip, and Ian
Her siblings left to right: Kevin Maxwell, Christine Maxwell, Isabel Maxwell, and Ian Maxwell were all seen walking to the New York court for her trial on December 20 last year
‘She’s had this terrible rollercoaster of arrest, then lost three, four, five bail applications consistently turned down for reasons that are wrong because the court doesn’t want to find itself on the wrong side of public opinion.
‘So, she has really had a dose of it, the way treatment has been dished out in jail has been really shocking but I know that she remains resolute, she is determined to see this through, she believes in her innocence completely of the charges that she faces.
‘She is getting on with preparing her appeal, the next thing coming is her sentencing and obviously we are not holding our breath that there is not going to be some incredibly savage sentence and I suspect nor is she, but we are absolutely determined that justice will prevail for Ghislaine.
‘However unpopular it is and however counter to the prevailing narrative this is about the justice system doing what it should do and that the basis of why we have appeal courts and it may have to go the Supreme Court.
‘Regardless of what this court has decided, on the basis of what it has decided we are confident that on that central point of the appeal, not to mention the other points that Ghislaine will be successful.
‘She has hope, she has a strong and supportive family. We have hope we are going to fight.’
Maxwell is due to be sentenced in June.
