So, Ghislaine -- still think it’s doctored?

PRINCE Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell have for years questioned the authenticity of the photograph showing the Duke with Virginia Roberts – but have failed to produce any evidence that it is fake.

Attempts to undermine its credibility began in 2019 when ‘friends’ of the Duke told a newspaper that the photo may not be real because his hands were too slender. In reality, Andrew’s fingers were ‘quite small and chubby’, one said.

Then in November 2019, during his BBC Newsnight interview, Andrew himself suggested it could have been fake, adding: ‘From the investigations we’ve done, you can’t prove whether or not that photograph is faked or not because it is a photograph of a photograph.’

He won support this month from former girlfriend Lady Victoria Hervey, who suggested an ‘Irish body double’ may have been used.

Last week, speaking from the US jail where she is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, Maxwell, 61, claimed: ‘It is a fake. I don’t believe it’s real for a second. I am sure it’s not. There has never been an original... there is no photograph.’ Her allegation of forgery contrasts with comments she made in 2015. Lawyer Alan Dershowitz emailed her: ‘Do you know whether the photo of Andrew and Virginia is real? You are in the background.’

Maxwell replied 11 minutes later: ‘It looks real. I think it is.’

Following the MoS’s revelations, a forensic image expert now plans to make a computer reconstruction of the photograph and simulate the lighting and shadow positions.

A source said: ‘A great deal of what has been written in the past about this image is utter tosh.’