'We're in this together', prince told Epstein in 2011 message

Prince Andrew told Jeffrey Epstein in an email “we are in this together” after a picture of the British royal with his arm around a teenage Virginia Giuffre was first published in 2011.

- Robert Booth

The email will pile further pressure on Duke of York and the royal family as he previously told the BBC he had ceased contact with the convicted child sex offender by that point.

Correspondence between the king’s younger brother and Epstein, published in the Mail on Sunday and the Sun on Sunday, appears to show that was not the case.

Andrew emailed Epstein on 28 February 2011, the day after the well-known photograph of the duke, Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell was made public.

He told Epstein to “keep in close touch” and expressed a wish to “play some more soon”.

In 2019, Andrew told the BBC’s Newsnight programme that he broke off his friendship with Epstein in December 2010, after the two men were photographed together strolling in New York.