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