Scotland Yard chief says Prince Andrew case is under review

LONDON —  The head of Scotland Yard said Thursday that the department is reviewing its files on but not opening an investigation of Britain’s Prince Andrew, who faces sexual assault allegations in a U.S. lawsuit.

Cressida Dick, the chief of London’s Metropolitan Police, which is also known as Scotland Yard, said officers working with prosecutors had already reviewed the case twice before Virginia Giuffre sued Andrew, 61, in U.S. federal court this week. Giuffre accuses the prince of sexually assaulting her with the aid of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

“As a result of what’s going on, I’ve asked my team to have another look at the material,” Dick told British radio station LBC. “No one is above the law.”

Giuffre’s lawsuit says the alleged assault occurred in 2001, when she was 17 years old. Andrew, the third of Queen Elizabeth II’s four children, has repeatedly denied the allegations.

“We are, of course, open to working with authorities from overseas,” Dick said Thursday. “We will give them every assistance if they ask us for anything, within the law, obviously.”

Giuffre alleges that Epstein forced her to have sex with Andrew. Her lawsuit says that she had sexual encounters with the prince in London, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and that he knew she had been trafficked by Epstein, who killed himself while jailed and awaiting trial in 2019.