Pizza Express ‘held inquiry into former prince Andrew’s visit to Woking branch’

Firm reportedly felt it was in public interest to test alibi offered by former duke after Virginia Giuffre accusation

Pizza Express held an internal inquiry to investigate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s visit to its Woking branch, as he claimed he did on the day he was alleged to have had sex with a teenage victim of Jeffrey Epstein 20 miles away in central London, it has been reported.

According to sources who spoke to the BBC , senior management at the restaurant chain held the investigation because they felt it was in the public interest to test the alibi the former Duke of York had offered. The broadcaster reported that the company had found neither evidence he had been to the restaurant in Surrey, nor evidence to definitively say he had not.

BBC Newsnight said its research had uncovered no evidence of anyone ever seeing Mountbatten-Windsor at the restaurant on the day in 2001.

Virginia Giuffre, a victim of the child sex offender Epstein, said she and Mountbatten-Windsor had partied at Tramp nightclub in London on 10 March 2001, when she was 17, before going back to Ghislaine Maxwell’s Belgravia house. She claimed he then had sex with her. Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

During an interview with Newsnight in 2019 , Mountbatten-Windsor made several attempts to rebut the allegation. Among those was the claim he had taken his daughter to a birthday party at the Woking branch of Pizza Express that day, before heading home.

“On that particular day that we now understand is the date which is the 10th of March, I was at home, I was with the children and I’d taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking for a party at I suppose sort of four or five in the afternoon.

“And then because the duchess was away, we have a simple rule in the family that when one is away the other one is there. I was on terminal leave at the time from the Royal Navy so, therefore, I was at home.”

The BBC said that among the inquiries it made to try to test Mountbatten-Windsor’s claim was a freedom of information request sent to the Metropolitan police. The broadcaster asked if any royal protection officers had accompanied the former prince, as he had claimed. Scotland Yard refused to answer, the BBC reported, saying it could “neither confirm nor deny” whether it held this information, citing “national security” among other reasons.

The Met told the BBC: “Confirming or denying that information is held would reveal whether protection had been afforded to a specific individual other than the king and the prime minister.”

This is despite the Met having already confirmed it had afforded Mountbatten-Windsor protection. In February, it released a statement to the media saying it was “identifying and contacting” former and serving protection officers and asking them to “consider carefully” whether they had seen or heard anything relating to criminal allegations against him.

Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office on 19 February this year . The arrest appeared to be related to his conduct as a UK trade envoy and followed the disclosure of emails related to Epstein. He was later released under investigation. The former prince has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Pizza Express has been contacted for comment.