The Met failed Giuffre once – they must not do so again

The force insists that the royal family is not above the law. But its refusal to act on allegations against Prince Andrew tells a very different story

- Nigel Cawthorne

On Sunday, a leaked email revealed that Prince Andrew had sought personal information about Virginia Giuffre, who later accused him of sexual abuse.

The message - sent in February 2011, just before The Mail on Sunday published the now-notorious photograph of the prince with his arm around the 17year-old in Ghislaine Maxwell’s Belgravia home - reignited questions about the Metropolitan Police’s repeated refusal to investigate the case.

The email, addressed to Ed Perkins, Queen Elizabeth’s deputy press secretary, read: “It would also seem she has a criminal record in the [United] States. I have given her DoB and social security number for investigation with XXX, the on-duty ppo.” Giuffre had no such criminal record. With hindsight, the correspondence reads as an apparent effort to discredit her.

Scotland Yard immediately sprang into action, saying it was looking into the claims. Despite this, the Metropolitan Police overlooked a far more serious matter: the allegations of sexual assault themselves. For more than a decade, the Met has reviewed the case three separate times - and each time declined to open an investigation. Their inaction, contrasted with the swiftness with which they have pursued lesser scandals, speaks volumes about the double standards that continue to define how power operates in Britain.