The anonymous Twitter troll account set up to discredit Virginia Giuffre

The online attacks came thick and fast, all 479 of them designed to discredit the accuser of Epstein, Maxwell and Prince Andrew.

- Alexi Mostrous

In October 2020, as Ghislaine Maxwell was languishing in a New York prison, awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein, an anonymous account popped up on Twitter.

@letsgiuffre was named after Virginia Giuffre, the woman who claimed she was trafficked by Maxwell from the US to London and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew - something he has always denied.

Even though her name was not on the indictment, Giuffre's claims were central to the criminal case against Maxwell. Prosecutors said her account of sexual abuse validated their theory that Maxwell was an active participant rather than a bystander.

But supporting Giuffre was the opposite of @letsgiuffre's intention. The account profile read: "Let's talk about Virginia Giuffre. The truth has not been reported."

Over three months, until it was quietly deactivated in January 2021, the account posted more than 1,200 messages and retweets. Almost every one was critical of Maxwell's accuser.

"#VirginiaGiuffre Why did you traffic minors to #Epstein despite not being held captive by him," read one post. "#VirginiaGiuffre Why did you lie about your age and state that you were 15 when you met #Epstein."

Another said: "You were not a child when you self-proclaimed as a child victim. You were a predator too."

Giuffre died by suicide in April aged 41. In her memoir, Nobody's Girl, published last week, she claimed that Prince Andrew's team tried to hire "internet trolls to hassle" her. While the @letsgiuffre account was created prior to her lawsuit against Prince Andrew, experts said it bore all the hallmarks of a troll account set up specifically to attack her. There is no evidence of any involvement by Andrew or his team.