Pizza Express reveals inquiry into Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's claim

Pizza Express held an internal inquiry into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's claims that he visited its restaurant in Woking.

The former prince claimed in his 2019 Newsnight interview that he had been at the branch in Surrey, England, on the day he was alleged to have had sexual relations with Virginia Giuffre, one of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's victims.

BBC Newsnight reports that the pizza chain investigated the claim and found no evidence that he had, or had not, been there. Additional research by the BBC has also found no record of anyone seeing him there on the night in 2001.

In his Newsnight interview, Mountbatten-Windsor said he had taken his daughter Princess Beatrice to a party at a Pizza Express in Woking at "4pm or 5pm in the afternoon" before spending the night at home.

"The Duchess was away, I think, United States somewhere," he explained. "And we had a very simple rule: at that stage, the children had one or other of us, well, as often as we could manage.

"So if one of us was out, the other one was in. On this particular occasion, she was away, and I was at home."

Newsnight has now been told that in 2019, the senior management team of Pizza Express looked into the plausibility of Mountbatten-Windsor's claim.

Bosses held an internal inquiry that involved looking for records from that time period, none of which could be found, and trying to talk to past members of staff and local management.

The manager of the Woking branch in 2001 had since left the business so could not be spoken to, it is understood.

Following its internal inquiry, the chain concluded it had found no evidence to suggest Mountbatten-Windsor had visited and nothing to suggest he had not.