I knew Virginia Giuffre. I wish she was alive to see the power of her courage

Shortly after the news broke – Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, arrested for alleged misconduct in public office! – a flood of emails, texts and messages on all forms of social media began lighting up my phone. “Sad that he’s arrested for harm to business rather than harm to girls, but it’s a start,” wrote one person I’ve never met. “The long arc of justice – may it bend in this country,” wrote another, this one clearly American. And then there was this: “We wouldn’t be here without her bravery.”

You don’t need to have collaborated with Virginia Roberts Giuffre on her memoir, as I did, to know exactly whose bravery was being referenced. Undeniably, without Giuffre’s courage, the king’s brother, eighth in line to the throne, would not have had to walk into that police station on Thursday.

Yes, I understand that the police investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor is focused – so far, at least – on allegations that the former prince shared confidential trade-related documents with Jeffrey Epstein. But there is no question in my mind that Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest would not have occurred but for Giuffre’s tireless pursuit of justice – the civil cases she brought, the constant speaking out on behalf of other survivors, her relentless demands to hold accountable all the men she alleged she’d been forced to sexually service.

The former prince has denied all allegations of impropriety. He settled the civil suit Giuffre brought against him alleging she’d been trafficked to him (he claimed no wrongdoing). He also said the photo of him with his arm around 17-year-old Giuffre was a fake: the recent tranche of emails released by the US Department of Justice, aka the Epstein files, appears to show once again that it is real.

I wish that Giuffre, who died by suicide last April, was alive to see the reckoning that has begun across the globe (although, shamefully, very slowly in America). The UK, Norway and France have begun the process of holding abusers’ feet to the fire, as well as others who moved in the circles of Epstein and his collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell. Those actions, and the arrest of Mountbatten-Windsor, validate what Giuffre said for years about the scope of the conspiracy – that it was about paedophilia and sex trafficking, for starters, but also about, and in the service of, power, influence, manipulation and money. If only Giuffre were here to see the mighty begin to fall.

I used the word “shamefully” to describe the Trump administration’s response to the Epstein files. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Earlier this week, several members of the House oversight committee heard testimony from American businessman Les Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, the lingerie brand, among other things. Wexner’s friendship with and financial ties to Epstein have long been public record. He is also another man to whom Giuffre, in sworn depositions that have been made public, said she’d been sexually trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell (Wexner denies that). Emerging from the closed-door deposition, congressmen said they were stunned to hear Wexner say he had never been interviewed – not once – by the US Department of Justice or the FBI.

Let that sink in. You might think that Wexner’s business dealings with Epstein alone would merit a little curiosity from the high-ranking American officials whose job it is to uphold the law. Add to that Giuffre’s claims, and you’d think that maybe some time in the last 15 years, since Giuffre first came forward publicly, someone in law enforcement would have knocked on Wexner’s door. But no.

Not all of that is the fault of the Trump administration. This investigation – if we can call it that – appears to have begun back in the late 1990s, when another brave survivor, Maria Farmer, first filed a report to the FBI. Many administrations have dropped the ball since then. But now we are here, and Trump’s suggestion that we all just “move on” from the Epstein matter is ringing hollow – especially now, in the wake of Mountbatten-Windsor’s comeuppance.

In the US, various corporate leaders who exchanged chummy emails with Epstein are resigning. It’s a bad look to be associated with a paedophile, especially these days, so these men (and one woman) have opted to take themselves off the public stage in the hopes of minimising future embarrassment.

But that’s not enough. Federal authorities in the US and members of the administration need to start listening to the brave women who have been sharing their accounts of heinous abuse for years.

As Giuffre wrote in Nobody’s Girl: “I hope for a world in which … victims are treated with compassion, not shamed; and powerful people face the same consequences as anyone else.” We don’t live in that world yet, but I know Giuffre would agree: Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest inched us just a little bit closer.

Amy Wallace worked with Virginia Giuffre for four years on her memoir, Nobody’s Girl, which is published by Doubleday

Photograph by Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images