Remember me
Pizza Express reportedly launched an investigation into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's claim he visited its Woking branch during his notorious Newsnight interview.
The former Prince used the bizarre alibi to deny having slept with Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein's victims who accused him of sex abuse.
Now, it has emerged that the pizza chain held an internal inquiry into whether he had indeed made a trip to their restaurant in the small town south-west of London in 2001.
Believing it was a matter of public interest, senior managers looked into the plausibility of his story by looking for records and trying to track down members of staff from the time.
The manager of the Woking branch had left the business and could not be found, it is understood.
In fact, the probe failed to turn up any evidence at all that he had - or had not - visited the restaurant, BBC Newsnight reports.
The programme also conducted its own research, but similarly found no record of anyone seeing him at the restaurant.
Andrew has not commented on the latest reports, but has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor claimed during his 2019 Newsnight interview with Emily Mailtis (pictured) that he visited Pizza Express in Woking on March 10, 2001
The former Prince gave the trip to the pizza restaurant as the reason he could not have slept with Viriginia Giuffre on the night she claimed
Prince Andrew claimed he had been taking his daughter Princess Beatrice, who would then have been 12-years-old, to a pizza party
Ms Giuffre was trafficked for abuse by Epstein, and claimed in 2019 she was also made the have sex with the then Prince three times between 2001 and 2002 when she was 17.
She claimed that one of these occasions was on March 10, 2001 - when she allegedly went to dinner with Andrew, danced with him in a nightclub, and then had sex with him in Ghislaine Maxwell's house in Belgravia, central London.
Confronted with this claim in the interview, Andrew said it couldn't possibly be true because that night he had taken his daughter Princess Beatrice to a party at a Pizza Express in Woking.
Read More Photo of Andrew with his arm around Virginia Giuffre IS REAL and I introduced them, says Ghislaine
He said he had taken Beatrice, who was then 12-years-old, at '4pm or 5pm in the afternoon', before spending the night at home.
Andrew gave more detail about the pizza party in footage that was not included in the final broadcast.
He said: 'I'd taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking.
'This has all been worked out by my staff, who've looked at the diary and everything else.
'The duchess [Sarah Ferguson] was away, I think, United States somewhere. And we had a very simple rule: at that stage, the children had one or other of us for all, most of the, well, as often as we could manage.
'So if one of us was out, the other one was in. And then occasionally they would have both of us and on this particular occasion, she was away and I was at home.'
In response to a Freedom of Information request from the BBC asking if any royal protection officers accompanied Andrew to the restaurant on that day, the Metropolitan Police said it could neither confirm nor deny whether it held the information - citing national security grounds.
Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey told the broadcaster: 'Too often we see these types of "neither confirm nor deny" answers where there really isn't a legitimate security reason – and I think that's what's happening here.'
He called for police to make an 'exception' in this case and reveal any records they have.
Andrew was stripped of his 'prince' title by his brother, the King, last year and moved out of his mansion, Royal Lodge.
He was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in a public office.
The former prince has consistently and strenuously denied any wrongdoing.