A source close to the now mother-of-three told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The interview was totally lacking in empathy and he did not utter a word of remorse for any of Epstein’s multitude of victims. How do you think that makes them feel? It is telling that the Prince is so out of touch that he tries to make the interview all about him.’

During one breathtaking exchange with the BBC’s Emily Maitlis, the Queen’s second son was asked if he felt any sense of guilt or shame over his friendship with the US financier, jailed for procuring an under-age girl for prostitution.

To Maitlis’s obvious incredulity, he replied: ‘Do I regret that fact that he has quite obviously conducted himself in a manner unbecoming? Yes.’

The Newsnight presenter immediately challenged his use of the word ‘unbecoming’ to describe the actions of a child sex offender and the Duke apologised. Yet overall his tone was far from regretful. Astonishingly, he went out of his way to say of Epstein that the ‘opportunities that I was given to learn either by him or because of him were actually very useful’.