LONDON 17 Nov (ANA) - Britain's Prince Andrew provoked a backlash Sunday following an extraordinary TV interview branded "disastrous" by public relations experts in which he denied having sex with an alleged victim of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The royal was lambasted from all quarters for his lack of judgement and empathy with Epstein's victims, while his eyebrow-raising defence that he was at a high street pizza chain, never sweated and only stayed at the disgraced financier's home because he was "honourable" drew derision.

The unprecedented interview was the first time Queen Elizabeth II's second son has answered questions from the media about Virginia Robert's allegations.

Roberts, now Giuffre, claims she was forced to have sex with the prince on three occasions -- in London in 2001 when she was 17, in New York and on Epstein's private Caribbean island. Andrew has repeatedly denied the accusations.

The interview with the BBC was a PR gamble intended to draw a line under the saga. Instead, it generated uniformly negative newspaper coverage.

Image consultant Mark Borkowski said the exchanges were "like watching a man in quicksand" and that he had "never seen anything so disastrous".

The royal family is used to having a difficult relationship with Britain's press and, according to some reports, they are already worried about the media fallout from the interview.

"There is concern in Buckingham Palace," a royal source told The Sunday Times, which said aides to the queen and Prince Charles had been divided over the wisdom of the interview.

The paper added that one of Andrew's press advisers had quit the role two weeks ago, having advised against it.

Peter Hunt, a former royal correspondent for the BBC, said the ill-advised interview was "the latest indication of a malaise afflicting the Royal Household".

Charles, he said, should "have the courage to... tell Prince Andrew to retire from public life on the basis his judgement has been called into question one too many times".

Andrew, 59, is eighth in line to the throne. He has been dogged for years by criticism of his links to Epstein, who was found dead in a New York jail in August.

A coroner ruled that he committed suicide by hanging while awaiting trial on federal charges that he had he trafficked girls as young as 14 for sex.

Giuffre alleges the financier abused her for years and farmed her out to his wealthy friends. She first made her allegations against Andrew in a 2015 US civil court deposition and has repeated them in more recent TV interviews.(ANA)

FA/ANA/17 November 2019------