The man formerly known as prince Andrew had his reputation destroyed six years ago and became the butt of internet jokes after his disastrous interview with the BBC about his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

He’s unlikely to take that risk again, despite the louder calls coming from everywhere from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US congressmen to lawyers representing Epstein’s victims for him to tell investigators what he knows about the disgraced financier and his network of rich and powerful friends.

“If you view the Newsnight evidence as a precedent, then who knows what Andrew would say or how he would come across in what would be some very, very hostile questioning – far [more] hostile than he faced from Emily Maitlis,” Craig Prescott, an expert on constitutional law and the monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London, said, referring to the infamous 2019 BBC interview.

“It’s very difficult to see how that is, in a sense, in the interests of Andrew to do that voluntarily.”

Documents reveal Epstein sought to arrange a date between the prince and a “beautiful” Russian woman. Photo: AAP

The pressure for the man now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to testify is growing after last week’s release of the latest batch of documents from the US Justice Department’s investigation into Epstein. It revealed further unsavoury details about links between the two men.

Lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents many of Epstein’s victims, said on Monday that Mountbatten-Windsor had a duty to provide any evidence that could help investigators understand how Epstein was able to abuse so many women for so long, and who else might have been involved in his crimes.

But the last time Mountbatten-Windsor tried to answer questions about his friendship with Epstein it ended in disaster.

After the 2019 interview with Maitlis, the then Duke of York was pilloried for offering unbelievable explanations for his continued contact with Epstein following the financier’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution, and for failing to show empathy for the victims.

Last year, his older brother the King stripped him of his royal titles, including the right to be called a prince, as he tried to insulate the monarchy from the continuing revelations about Mountbatten-Windsor’s relationship with Epstein, which have tarnished the royal family for more than a decade.

Marsh Farm on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. Photo: AAP

The former prince has also been ordered to vacate Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion near Windsor Castle that has been his home for decades. Just over a fortnight ago, it was reported he was poised to move into the “ramshackle” Marsh Farm, a much smaller property on the King’s Sandringham Estate.

Mountbatten-Windsor has little to lose by ignoring calls for him to testify, and US authorities will find it hard to compel him to appear before Congress, said lawyer Mark Stephens, who handles international and complex cases at Howard Kennedy in London.

“There will be huge pressure and calls for him to [testify], but I don’t think that even if he gets there, even if he gives evidence, it’s going to reveal anything meaningful,” Stephens said.

“I would fully expect him to take the fifth, as Americans say, the privilege against self-incrimination. And so I don’t think, beyond his name, he’s going answer any of the questions either by turning up or not turning up.”

Documents released last Friday suggest that Epstein sought to arrange a date between Mountbatten-Windsor and a “beautiful” 26-year-old Russian woman, and that the former prince offered Epstein dinner at Buckingham Palace.

They also revealed emails sent by Sarah Ferguson, Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife and the former Duchess of York, in which she called Epstein a “legend” and “the brother I have always wished for”.

In another email, Ferguson appears to congratulate Epstein on the arrival of a “baby boy”.

The former couple’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, are also dragged into the scandal. Among numerous mentions in the files, is an extraordinary exchange where an unnamed person tells Epstein in an email of Eugenie’s “shagging weekend”.

Documents do not show wrongdoing by many of those named; their appearance in the files reflects Epstein’s extremely wide reach.

Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, and has previously demonstrated caution about talking to US authorities.

British newspapers’ coverage of the scandal. Photo: AAP

After he stepped away from royal duties in 2019, Mountbatten-Windsor announced that he was willing to help “any appropriate law enforcement agency” with its investigation into Epstein.

But documents released last year showed how 10 months of negotiations between his lawyers and federal prosecutors in the US failed to secure his testimony.

Lawyers for the former prince ultimately rejected proposals for him to be directly interviewed by prosecutors, either in person or by video. Instead, they proposed that he give his answers in writing, something they said was perfectly acceptable in British courts.

Finally, on September 23, 2020, the prosecutors gave up on the idea of a voluntary interview and said they planned to start the formal process of asking the British courts to compel Mountbatten-Windsor’s testimony under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between Britain and the US. There is no indication that interview ever took place.

While Mountbatten-Windsor has said he knows nothing about Epstein’s crimes, the documents released by the US Justice Department show that he has at least some understanding of the parties Epstein hosted, and how he used young women to influence his network of wealthy, powerful friends, Allred told the BBC.

“He’s not the one who should decide whether he knows anything that could help in the investigation,” she said.

“I am saying it’s not too late, and he does have information that he can share that may help them.”

-AAP