Prince Andrew's ex Lady Victoria Hervey claims famous photo with Virginia Giuffre is fake

Prince Andrew's ex-girlfriend Lady Victoria Hervey has refuted the authenticity of one of the major pieces of evidence in the sex abuse case filed against him by Virginia Giuffre.

Virginia Giuffre (nee Roberts) has filed a lawsuit against the British royal in the United States accusing him of having sex with her on three occasions while she was still a minor and trafficked to him by convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. While the Duke of York denies the charges and claims he has no recollection of even meeting Giuffre, an infamous picture shows him posing with his accuser while Epstein's partner-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell is standing behind them.

However, Andrew insisted in his BBC Newsnight interview that the picture is fake, saying, "From the investigations that we've done, you can't prove whether or not that photograph is faked or not because it is a photograph of a photograph."

Lady Victoria Hervey, the daughter of the 6th Marquess of Bristol who dated the royal in 1999, also came out in his defence and claimed that his picture with Giuffre and Maxwell is doctored. In a series of stories on her Instagram account, the socialite gave confusing explanations as to why she believes the image is photoshopped.

The 44-year-old shared a picture in which Giuffre is seen standing alone against a grey and yellow wall with a blue coat slung over her right arm. Using another photo of Giuffre on a yacht at Naomi Campbell's birthday party in 2001, Hervey suggested that her photo with Andrew isn't real because she is wearing the same outfit and in an identical stance in both situations.

She said about the photo of Giuffre and Andrew, "Do you believe that photo is real? Or what if I told you a survivor of Epstein's told me it's an Irish body double that was edited in."

"The guy they used is in fact a body double that they photoshopped Andrews head onto. Maria Farmer edited it together with Virginia," the socialite claimed in another story. She went on to share a picture of a man who according to her was the "Irish body-double" of Andrew.

Hervey had previously sparked controversy by calling the trial against Ghislaine Maxwell a "witch hunt." She said in an Instagram post last week, "This story has been so blown out of proportion... I know Ghislaine is obviously not a saint and should pay back the trauma caused to her "victims" but lifetime in jail for touching a girl's t*t 20 years ago and taking them on yacht, private jet and shopping trips. Come on."