UK Edition
VIPs given a tour of Buckingham Palace by the Duke of York were told that Ghislaine Maxwell was accompanying them because she was his ex-girlfriend.
The Telegraph has obtained an exclusive photograph of the Duke in Buckingham Palace in 2002, showing him in the Queen’s official residence with Maxwell, who is facing 40 years in jail after being convicted of sex offences.
In the background is Bill Clinton, the former US president who was being given a tour of the palace with Kevin Spacey, the Oscar-winning actor whose reputation has since been shredded over allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment.
On the same tour, Maxwell and Spacey sat on thrones and pretended to be the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.
A member of the tour party said: “Ghislaine Maxwell was the one who led us into Buckingham Palace. We walked in the main gates and Ghislaine showed us where we needed to be. She knew her way around this area of the palace. Ghislaine was described to me [as] an ex-girlfriend of Prince Andrew’s.”
The source added: “The tour was for Clinton and Spacey – they were Prince Andrew’s guests. But Ghislaine seemed to be leading the charge. The impression we all had was that there was some relationship there between Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell.
“They clearly knew each other very well. She was very friendly and cheery.”
Sources close to the Duke of York have previously said that he had “no recollection of” being present. However, this photograph shows him, pointing into the distance, as Maxwell, to his left, watches over Mr Clinton, who is examining two thrones in the Buckingham Palace ballroom.
The photograph was taken on Sep 30 2002, 18 months after the Duke is alleged to have had sex for the first time with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 17 at the time, at Maxwell’s London mews house.
Ms Giuffre, now 38, is suing the Duke for sexual assault. He denies the allegations and insisted in a legal document filed by his lawyers that he and Maxwell were not “close friends”.
An examination of the court circular shows that the Duke had arrived in London the day before the Buckingham Palace tour, after an official week-long visit to the US in his role as a trade envoy.
It is unclear whether he privately visited Jeffrey Epstein, Maxwell’s boyfriend and his close friend, before or during the stay, which included three days in New York, where Epstein had a home.
In Sep 2002, Maxwell remained close to Epstein. That month, her trial heard, he had sent her $5 million (£3.7 million) by wire transfer.
Maxwell was convicted at the end of December of procuring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein, the billionaire financier who took his own life in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The trip to Buckingham Palace was arranged for Mr Clinton by the Duke.
The former US president had spent the week before on a tour of Africa that took in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa, accompanied by Maxwell, Spacey and Chris Tucker, the comedian.
Epstein was not on the trip, but loaned Mr Clinton his private plane, a Boeing 727 that had been nicknamed the “Lolita Express”.
Photographs have since emerged of Mr Clinton being massaged during a stopover at a small airport in Portugal by Chauntae Davies, a therapist who has since claimed that she was raped by Epstein on a number of occasions.
Ms Davies, who was 22 at the time, has said that Mr Clinton behaved like a “complete gentleman” and there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of the former president.
In the photograph obtained by The Telegraph, Mr Clinton is standing in the background examining artefacts in front of the thrones while Maxwell watches on. A young woman wearing a T-shirt with “God Save the Queen” emblazoned on it is thought to be part of the entourage.
The ballroom is the largest of the palace state rooms, used for functions such as state banquets. From the ballroom, the party went to the throne room where Maxwell and Spacey were photographed on the Chairs of Estate used for the Queen’s coronation in 1953.