We had been sitting nose to nose round a small desk in Buckingham Palace — three of us from BBC Newsnight, plus Prince Andrew, his personal secretary and Princess Beatrice, who was writing in a pocket book.
At stake was the interview each broadcaster the world over would have given their proper arm to just do then. Would Andrew conform to go on TV to speak about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein?
What adopted was an intense two hours of questioning from the prince and his daughter — and with each minute, it turned ever clearer that this wasn’t received but.
As a Newsnight producer, I’d been pursuing this interview for months and was determined to land it.
In order we talked, I made a decision to present it to Prince Andrew very bluntly.
‘Sir. I’ve lived on this nation for over 40 years and, till now, I solely knew two issues about you. It’s that you just’re often known as ‘Air Miles Andy’ and ‘Randy Andy’ — and I can completely let you know that the latter actually doesn’t make it easier to in your present predicament.’
Had I blown our probabilities of touchdown the interview of a lifetime? My colleagues — presenter Emily Maitlis and Newsnight deputy editor Stewart Maclean — appeared genuinely shocked.
There was a protracted pause. Then Andrew laughed. The room collectively exhaled.
It had all began innocuously — an electronic mail from a PR to me in November 2018, suggesting a chat about Pitch@Palace, Prince Andrew’s initiative to assist entrepreneurs all over the world. Would Newsnight wish to interview him about it?
The easy reply was ‘no’. We by no means conform to puff items and by no means permit interviewees to present situations. So I politely declined.
‘Do come again to me if the place modifications!’ I signed off.
It appeared so unlikely that I didn’t even inform my boss.
I assumed I’d by no means hear from the PR once more. However six months later, I did: Prince Andrew was now open to a broader chat — would I be keen on studying extra? Completely.
The PR mentioned she wanted to speak to Andrew’s personal secretary, Amanda Thirsk, and she or he’d be again in contact. It was the primary time I’d heard Amanda’s identify and I instantly Googled her.
She sounded suitably spectacular — a lady who’d labored for the prince for seven years, however who’d beforehand been a banker within the Metropolis. The image that emerged, after speaking to a few mates, was of somebody formidable: intelligent, thorough and fiercely loyal to Prince Andrew.
As a former prison barrister, I knew the solutions had been a future defence lawyer’s nightmare. I realised, for the primary time, that Andrew couldn’t have taken authorized recommendation earlier than talking to us.
Shortly afterwards, I used to be invited to fulfill Amanda at Buckingham Palace.
I’m not going to lie — I used to be excited to go. However at this stage I wasn’t hopeful about touchdown an interview.
So far as I knew, no member of the Royal Household had ever even been on Newsnight. We had no connections within the Palace. It was uncommon to even do a ‘royal’ story. Why on earth would Prince Andrew wish to discuss to us?
All I may see was a load of armed police at an open gate and couldn’t fairly consider anybody simply walked into Buckingham Palace that means, however that’s precisely what occurred. They appeared me up on a listing, took my ID and rang by way of to somebody who sanctioned my entry.
The ocean of police and weapons parted, and I started the lengthy stroll to the palace door. The a whole bunch of vacationers stacked up towards the gates stared as I traipsed throughout the cobbles, considerably impeded by a perilously excessive pair of knee-high, gold-heeled Kurt Geiger boots.
I used to be directed to a modest ready room that featured a teeny marble mantelpiece with a big gilt mirror and a loudly ticking picket clock. On a little bit desk sat a framed image of Her Majesty, in a yellow jacket and hat.
Feeling daring, I picked up the black body. It wasn’t heavy; it appeared like an affordable picket body from Ikea.
As I sat there I may hear employees chattering about some royal go to to Sainsbury’s, and watched as a soldier got here in, eliminated his large bearskin cap, and talked for a second concerning the day. Then two PRs arrived, and we had been taken upstairs in old school lifts, previous large busts of former kings and queens, and thru swathes of empty corridors. Amanda’s workplace was a small room, peppered with photos of Prince Andrew and his household.
She was precisely as I anticipated — impeccable manners, thorough and direct, not a hair misplaced. We talked for 2 hours, and agreed that the interview would embody every little thing from Brexit to the way forward for the monarchy in addition to some other related points that arose.
Then Amanda mentioned there was only one pink line: we couldn’t discuss concerning the difficulty of Andrew’s friendship with Epstein. My coronary heart sank.
Again then, Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t a reputation that rang bells for lots of people. Even so, I knew we needed to decline the interview.
This was in Could 2019. Eight weeks later, Epstein was arrested. Twelve weeks later, he was lifeless. The total scale of his prison behaviour was coming into sharp focus, and Virginia Roberts Giuffre, and different victims, had began to talk.
Twenty weeks on, I managed to influence Amanda that Prince Andrew’s place — of silence within the face of worldwide scrutiny — was untenable.
Twelve lengthy days later got here the e-mail we had hoped for. It arrived from Amanda, early on a Saturday morning, November 9: may presenter Emily Maitlis, our deputy editor Stewart and I come to the palace in two days? Prince Andrew wished to fulfill us.
Monday, November 11, 2019
‘Morning!’ Prince Andrew’s voice was upbeat as he got here into Amanda’s room. He was smiling. He appeared pleasant. ‘I hope you don’t thoughts, however I introduced somebody with me!’ We exchanged glances. Who may it’s? A lawyer? Possibly somebody from the Queen’s employees?
After which, from behind him, got here Princess Beatrice. To be frank, the one factor worse than talking to a potential interviewee about allegations of sexual impropriety and intercourse with a 17-year-old lady is having to take action in entrance of his daughter.
Princess Beatrice was well mannered and engaged, however, in contrast to her father, she was evidently anxious concerning the assembly and clearly there to guard his pursuits.
I’d heard she was near the Queen. The Prince’s eldest daughter was now, I felt, the one that may make the distinction between us getting the interview or not.
All of us sat down, crammed into that tiny room just a few toes from each other. What was most shocking was that there was by no means any try to seek out out what we’d ask or to position situations on the questions.
For his half, the prince revealed for the primary time that he supposedly had an ‘alibi’. He informed us about Pizza Specific. A youngsters’s celebration. He talked about his sweating, or lack thereof. He talked about how lately he’d seen Ghislaine Maxwell (Epstein’s procurer of under-age women). He admitted he’d made errors of judgment. It was jaw-dropping stuff.
After which he mentioned one thing I’ll always remember.
As we concluded, he turned to Princess Beatrice and mentioned that they had rather a lot to debate and will go, straight after, upstairs, to speak about it, over a cup of tea, with Mum.
For a cut up second, I nearly scoffed; what on earth did a grown man want to speak to his mum for? After which it hit me. ‘Mum’ was the Queen.
Lower than 24 hours later, he agreed to the interview.
I felt I wouldn’t actually consider it till these cameras began rolling. However I wouldn’t have to attend lengthy. This was on Tuesday, November 12, 2019. And in simply two days we might all discover ourselves again inside Buckingham Palace, nose to nose with Prince Andrew once more, conducting what turned out to be an interview extra surprising than any of us may ever have predicted.
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Fifteen toes: that’s how far-off I’m from the again of Andrew’s chair. I can see the soles of his sneakers (hardly scuffed), the again of his head (new haircut), the hem of his trousers (a superbly judged size) and the nervous tapping of his left foot. The chair appears a little bit small for his physique.
My very own chair is up towards the wall of an opulent room bigger than most London flats. I’m sitting subsequent to a really pleasant girl who, seeing how nervous I’m, kindly provides me a martini.
Gin, with a twist. Her Majesty can be a fan. It’s a kind of exchanges which you could hardly consider is occurring, chatting idly with somebody in Buckingham Palace about your monarch’s penchant for a cocktail.
This charming girl is the prince’s equerry. She’s sure this interview will clear his identify — that it’s all been a horrible misunderstanding. That, after this, issues will return to regular.
Emily Maitlis is nervous, busying herself together with her notes, the results of two days of relentless apply and brainstorms with a small group.
I really feel panic rise inside me. We’re about to interview a member of the Royal Household about his connections with a sex-trafficker. We’re about to ask him, on digicam, whether or not he had intercourse with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, whether or not he knew about Epstein’s horrible acts, and whether or not he was complicit.
Other than the equerry, Amanda is right here together with her deputy. That’s it. No legal professionals, no different royal employees. I’d anticipated a swarm of individuals to supervise all of it.
A tall white man comes into the room to say hey. He’s launched as Donal McCabe, ‘Communications Secretary to the Queen’. His go to is kind of vital; it signifies that the Queen probably is aware of concerning the interview.
After talking to a few individuals, he leaves. Afterwards, this appears a missed alternative — if he’d stayed, he’d have identified the contents of the interview first-hand. Maybe he would have realised how terribly this is able to play out for Andrew, for the palace, for the monarchy.
Maybe they might have had extra time to arrange a response. Injury limitation of some type. Because it was, the primary time McCabe would have seen the interview was greater than 48 hours later, alongside the complete nation.
As I await the cameras and lighting to be arrange, the equerry tells me that the identical room will probably be used after the interview for Palace ‘cinema evening’. After we depart, members of the Royal Family will congregate to observe a movie, perhaps eat popcorn.
Prince Andrew all of a sudden seems, and makes his means over to speak to me. He’s pleasant and chatty. We focus on ‘cinema evening’ and he opens the doorways on the finish of the room to disclose the projector. Seems this night they’re displaying a Renée Zellweger movie — Judy — have I seen it?
We chat a little bit about Judy Garland, the climate, floods in Inexperienced Park, after which he strikes on to the crew, making ideas about microphones and different technicalities.
Twenty minutes later, we’re able to go. Amanda settles herself close to Andrew, sitting on the ground, pocket book in her hand. Emily nods. The cameras are rolling. We’re off.
The primary query Emily asks — why he’s determined to speak now — is the one I get requested probably the most in the present day. Why take the large danger?
It’s straightforward to look again now and say that the choice was reckless. However few individuals think about their very own solutions doing them hurt.
You even have to recollect the life Andrew has lived. The second son, at all times mentioned to be the Queen’s favorite. Granted extraordinary entry and alternative. Fawned over.
The common CEO would by no means have taken this danger. They’d have calculated 100 causes to not take the prospect. However Andrew and his individuals should have thought this hour of his life would change the general public notion of him for the higher.
We don’t know for certain, however we assume he’s spent the previous couple of days in fixed rehearsals. Like us, his group should have theorised the questions, determined exactly how one can cope with the extra severe allegations, thought-about physique language and tone. Deliberated precisely if, or how, he may apologise. His reply to Emily’s query? He merely reminds us that his individuals have been speaking to Newsnight for six months and ‘really it’s an excellent alternative’.
After that, Emily gave a masterclass in calm, methodical, analytical interviewing. The interview is now used the world over, by PR and communications professionals and by individuals in disaster administration, as a shining instance of what solutions to not give whenever you’re coping with controversy. I’d assumed Andrew would distance himself from Epstein. Condemn him outright and diminish their shared historical past. As an alternative, it appeared like they had been shut mates, and, worse, that the prince even admired him.
What adopted was one astonishing reply after one other. Every time I believed it couldn’t get any worse, it did. The solutions confirmed how completely eliminated the prince was from the truth of a mean life.
Had he been on Epstein’s personal airplane? Sure. Had he stayed on his personal island? Sure. Had he stayed at his residence in Palm Seashore? Sure. Had he visited Ghislaine Maxwell’s London residence? Sure. Was Epstein at Princess Beatrice’s 18th birthday celebration at Windsor Citadel? Sure.
In 2008, Epstein was jailed for soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. Andrew mentioned they’d had no contact throughout that point. However Emily had the killer blow: ‘Inside months [of his release], you went to stick with him at his New York mansion. Why? Why had been you staying with a convicted intercourse offender?’
Andrew replied: ‘I went there with the only real function of claiming to him that as a result of he had been convicted, it was inappropriate for us to be seen collectively . . . I felt that doing it over the phone was the rooster’s means of doing it.’
I used to be incredulous. Was he saying it was the correct factor to do to spend 4 days on the residence of a convicted intercourse offender? That it was someway honourable?
Emily continued. ‘Do you remorse the entire friendship with Epstein?’
Andrew ought to have bitten her hand off for the prospect to say, fairly merely, sure. As an alternative, he mentioned: ‘Now, nonetheless not, and the reason is is that the individuals I met and the alternatives I used to be given to be taught both by him or due to him had been really very helpful.’
I bear in mind having to look down simply so I may roll my eyes.
He had no recollection of assembly Virginia Roberts Guiffre. Or of getting his hand round her waist within the notorious {photograph} allegedly taken on the evening she claimed he had intercourse together with her. As a royal, he mentioned, he wouldn’t have been bodily near somebody like that.
Out got here his now infamous alibis — that he was at Pizza Specific in Woking that day, that Virginia’s recollection of him sweating on the dance ground at Tramp nightclub couldn’t be true as a result of he’d misplaced the power to sweat.
As a former prison barrister, I knew the solutions had been a future defence lawyer’s nightmare. I realised, for the primary time, that Andrew couldn’t have taken authorized recommendation earlier than talking to us.
It simply bought worse and worse.
He couldn’t have had intercourse with Virginia, he mentioned, as a result of intercourse, for a person, is a ‘form of constructive motion’ which could be very troublesome to overlook. Was this a royal euphemism for penetration?
Emily gave him one other likelihood: ‘I ponder in case you have any sense now of guilt, remorse or disgrace about any of your behaviour and your friendship with Epstein?’
She handed it to him on a plate. Absolutely he’d make clear that it had all been a horrible mistake?
I appeared up from the ground, watched him collect himself for one of many closing solutions.
‘So far as Mr Epstein is anxious, it was the fallacious determination to go and see him in 2010. So far as my affiliation with him was involved, it had some severely helpful outcomes in areas that don’t have anything to do with what . . . we’re speaking about in the present day.’ Extraordinary that he couldn’t see how horrible that sounded. Emily requested her closing query.
‘Is there something you are feeling has been left unsaid that you just wish to say now?’
A message of remorse for the horrible acts his ‘pal’ had dedicated, maybe? Andrew’s likelihood ebbed away.
‘No, I don’t suppose so. I believe you’ve in all probability dragged out most of what’s required . . .’
That was it. An interview extra surprising than any of us may ever have predicted.
I couldn’t take a look at anybody. I may barely consider his individuals hadn’t stopped the interview. I might have, regardless of the results.
‘How did you suppose it went?’ I requested the equerry.
She beamed. ‘Wasn’t he fantastic!’ she mentioned.
I’d anticipated Amanda Thirsk to be distraught, the prince to look shaken or involved, however she was smiling and he appeared ebullient.
After which it hit me: he really thought it had gone properly.
He was in such an excellent temper that he provided us all a tour of the palace. I couldn’t go. I wouldn’t have been capable of converse to him in good religion. After all, Emily couldn’t decline. I don’t know the way she stored her composure.
After the interview was broadcast, everybody agreed it had been an unmitigated catastrophe for Prince Andrew. The newspapers additionally lambasted Amanda Thirsk, ridiculing her for ‘letting’ him do the interview.
I discovered this profoundly disturbing. What she had accomplished was consider in her boss — his personal solutions had landed him in scorching water.
I additionally felt surprisingly protecting in the direction of her. We had been each doing our jobs to one of the best of our skills. And now her skilled life lay in tatters.
On November 20, Prince Andrew introduced he was stepping again from public duties for the foreseeable future. Belatedly, he additionally expressed sympathy for Epstein’s victims.
Amanda Thirsk stepped again from her function after which finally left.
I messaged her. Provided to fulfill if she was so inclined.
In the meantime, Ghislaine Maxwell was charged with eight counts regarding grooming under-age women for Epstein. Requires Andrew to ‘co-operate’ with the FBI grew louder.
After which, simply earlier than the twenty fifth anniversary of Martin Bashir’s Panorama interview with Princess Diana, Earl Spencer went public with allegations towards him and the BBC.
The interview, he mentioned, had been procured by Martin Bashir after he informed a litany of lies to Diana and confirmed her cast financial institution statements. She’d by no means have agreed to do it in any other case.
The extra I discovered concerning the allegations, the extra appalled I used to be.
A graphic designer who’d blown the whistle on the financial institution statements had misplaced his job. It appeared clear there’d been some type of cover-up.
All I may really feel was betrayal and anger. For that, amongst different causes, I made a decision I wished to go away the BBC.
Earlier than I left, I lastly bought to see Amanda Thirsk. She was nothing however gracious and wished me one of the best. We’re nonetheless in contact now and again.
