Pizza Express has launched an internal investigation into whether Andrew Mountbatten Windsor visited its Woking restaurant, BBC Newsnight has learned.
The former prince claimed in his infamous 2019 Newsnight interview that he was at the Surrey branch on the day he allegedly slept with Virginia Giuffre, one of the victims of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
BBC Newsnight has now discovered that the pizza chain investigated the claim and found no evidence he was or wasn’t there. Our research also found no record of anyone seeing him there at night in 2001.
Mountbatten-Windsor did not respond to requests for comment but has strongly denied any wrongdoing.
Newsnight revisited the 2019 interview in light of the Epstein cases and Mountbatten-Windsor’s February arrest on suspicion of Thames Valley Police misconduct in public office. He was subsequently released under investigation.
Giuffre claimed she was forced to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor three times, including when she was 17 years old.
One allegedly occurred on March 10, 2001, when Giuffre said she dined with him, danced with him in a nightclub and then had sex with him at the home of Ghislaine Maxwell, a girlfriend of the then prince, in Belgravia, central London.
In his interview with Newsnight, Mountbatten-Windsor said he instead took his daughter Princess Beatrice to a party at Pizza Express in Woking “at 4pm or 5pm” that day before spending the night at home.
The vast majority of the interviews were broadcast, but a small amount of material was not included due to time constraints.