It is an image now burned into my brain: Prince Andrew, in the eaves of Buckingham Palace, trying to explain to me why he thought a Newsnight interview might be a good idea.
He wanted to get across his innocence. He wanted to tell me he had never met the woman who was accusing him of sex trafficking. He wanted to try and prove that it hadn’t been him in the now-infamous photograph in Ghislaine Maxwell’s house – an arm flung around Virginia Giuffre.
And as he prepared his defence, something became very clear to our team: that this interview – albeit without any legal bearing whatsoever – would have to be as forensic as any court document. The questions were what any journalist would want to ask. But they were asked in a way that would make them a legitimate public record.
