They’ve waited years for answers, and some of them still aren’t sure anyone in power is really listening. For the survivors connected to the Jeffrey Epstein case, the question of whether Prince Andrew will ever face meaningful scrutiny in Britain isn’t just a legal one. It feels deeply personal.
Spencer Kuvin, a US-based lawyer who represents several of Epstein’s survivors, has been blunt about where his clients stand. He says they simply don’t trust the UK’s Metropolitan Police to handle any investigation into the Duke of York with the seriousness it deserves. Given everything they’ve already been through, that scepticism isn’t hard to understand.
“My clients have very little faith that the UK authorities would treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve,” Kuvin has said, adding that the women he represents fear being retraumatised by a process that might ultimately lead nowhere.
Andrew reached a settlement in 2022 with Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, in a civil case brought in the United States. He paid an undisclosed sum and issued a statement expressing “regret” for his association with Epstein, without admitting any wrongdoing. He stepped back from royal duties in 2019.
The Metropolitan Police reviewed the matter back in 2015 and again later, ultimately concluding there was no need for a formal investigation into Andrew himself. Critics at the time argued the reviews were cursory. Survivors and their legal teams have long felt that institutional instincts to protect the powerful were at play.
Britain does have jurisdiction to investigate offences allegedly committed by UK nationals abroad, at least in certain circumstances. But jurisdiction and political will are two very different things, and right now, Kuvin argues, his clients see little evidence of the latter.
Giuffre’s legal situation has shifted in recent months, with reports suggesting she may be seeking to revisit or withdraw certain claims under pressure, a development that has complicated the broader picture. But for the other survivors Kuvin represents, their position hasn’t changed.
Whether the Metropolitan Police will ever revisit its earlier conclusions, and whether that would even produce justice at this stage, remains one of the more uncomfortable open questions sitting at the heart of British public life.
