Pizza Express has revealed it conducted an internal inquiry into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s claim that he visited its Woking branch in 2001. The investigation found no evidence to confirm or deny the visit.
The Woking branch of Pizza Express, an unlikely focal point in one of the most high-profile scandals of the 21st century, has found itself at the centre of renewed scrutiny. It has emerged today that senior management at the restaurant chain conducted a discreet internal investigation into claims made by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor regarding his whereabouts on a pivotal date in 2001.
The inquiry centres on the former prince’s 2019 BBC Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis. During the broadcast, intended to address allegations of sexual misconduct involving Virginia Giuffre, Mountbatten-Windsor famously cited a visit to the Goldsworth Road branch of Pizza Express as his alibi for March 10, 2001. He asserted that he had taken his daughter, Princess Beatrice, to a birthday party at the restaurant at “four or five in the afternoon” before returning home, a detail he described as “very unusual” and therefore memorable.
In the years since that interview, the claim became a lightning rod for public skepticism. Recognizing the gravity of the assertions and the potential impact on the brand’s reputation, senior leadership at Pizza Express initiated an internal probe. The objective was straightforward: to determine whether there was any historical evidence to support or refute the visit.
The investigation was exhaustive but ultimately inconclusive. According to reports surfacing today, the company reviewed archival business records and attempted to track down former employees who might have been working on that specific date. These efforts were met with significant challenges, not least because the restaurant manager on duty in 2001 had long since left the company and could not be reached for comment. Furthermore, no surviving sales receipts or digital logs from that era could be recovered.
The findings—or lack thereof—leave the matter in a state of unresolved ambiguity. Pizza Express management reportedly concluded that they found no evidence that Mountbatten-Windsor had visited the restaurant, but simultaneously found nothing that definitively disproved his claim. The absence of corroboration from staff members or contemporaneous documentation has done little to quiet the public conversation that has swirled around the statement for years.
This internal review is only one of several efforts to test the veracity of the alibi. The BBC, through its own research, also attempted to verify the account, consulting with potential witnesses and examining public records, yet their findings aligned with those of the restaurant chain: no one could recall seeing the former prince at the Woking establishment on the day in question. Additionally, the broadcaster submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Metropolitan Police, seeking to know if royal protection officers had accompanied him to Woking, as he had suggested. The force declined to comment, citing national security concerns.
The timing of this revelation is particularly significant, coming months after Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest in February 2026 on suspicion of misconduct in public office—a development linked to his previous role as a UK trade envoy and his association with Jeffrey Epstein. As the legal processes initiated by his arrest continue to unfold, the renewed focus on his 2019 alibi underscores the enduring nature of the questions that have defined his post-royal life.
For now, the Pizza Express in Woking remains a symbol of a scandal that has reshaped the British monarchy and cast a long, persistent shadow over its former prince. While the restaurant has officially closed the book on its internal inquiry, the “Woking alibi” persists as one of the most debated anecdotes in modern public life—a claim that, like the memories of the people who worked that day, remains lost to time.
