Even by social media’s ever-plummeting standards, it was an extraordinarily mean-spirited post.

Lady Victoria Hervey, the socialite friend of Prince Andrew, this week shared a photograph of Virginia Giuffre, the sex trafficking victim of Jeffrey Epstein.

The photo was one Giuffre had put on Instagram from her hospital bed, in which she appears bruised and battered, with heart monitor electrodes on her chest.

‘Karma’, wrote Hervey, over the picture, adding the mocking strains of ‘The Final Countdown’ to her post.

The music was a nod to Giuffre’s Instagram claims that she had been in a car accident and had only four days to live.

Her spokesperson later said the post was a mistake, but the 41-year-old remained in hospital in a ‘serious condition’ following a collision with a school bus near her home in Western Australia.

Confusion abounds, much to the delight of people like Hervey, who is one of the last remaining humans willing to defend Prince Andrew in public.

Prince Andrew, let us not forget, paid Giuffre (formerly Virginia Roberts) an undisclosed sum, reportedly well into the millions, to settle claims of sexual assault, even though he says he never met her.

Lady Victoria Hervey posted this response to the bruised and bloodied image originally posted by Virginia Giuffre

Now royal experts are suggesting the bizarre story could work in Prince Andrew’s favour, calling into question the credibility of Giuffre as a witness.

I think it says a lot about Hervey et al that they would choose to see this unfortunate episode as an opportunity to rehabilitate Prince Andrew, and not as a desperately sad example of the devastating impact of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s wicked crimes.

Crimes that, years after he committed them, continue to ruin the lives of his victims. Is Giuffre’s strange assertion that she only has a few days to live any more harmful than, say, Prince Andrew’s claim that he cut all ties with Epstein in the December of 2010? A claim that was this year called into question by the emergence of emails that showed the pair were still in contact a few months later.

It has been reported that a couple of weeks before Giuffre’s mystery crash, she was charged with breaching a restraining order. If she did I can’t condone it, but I can see how difficult her life must be right now.

She faces the breakdown of her marriage of 22 years. She credits her estranged husband, Robert, with ‘saving’ her from Epstein, who was not the only man to abuse her. As a child, she was molested by a family friend, and as a 14-year-old, she lived on the streets, before being drugged and raped by the sex trafficker Ron Eppinger.

At 16, while working as a locker room assistant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, she was accosted by Ghislaine Maxwell, who asked her to come and work as a massage therapist for Epstein. Is it really any surprise, then, that she might still be deeply traumatised all these years later?

But before getting too distracted by Giuffre’s difficulties, let’s remind ourselves of the scale of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.

The Miami Herald’s investigative journalist Julie K Brown, whose work helped to bring down the financier, identified around 80 of his victims.

Lady Victoria (right) is one of the last remaining humans willing to defend Prince Andrew (left) in public, writes BRYONY GORDON

‘He had enough money to get the finest prostitutes that he wanted, but he didn’t want that,’ said Brown in 2021.

‘He wanted scared, young girls. That was all part of his fantasy… It was like a revolving door… he wanted fresh, young girls all the time… he wanted a continuing parade of young girls.’

Brown added that ‘he didn’t do this alone. He had a whole ecosystem that he created that allowed this to happen’.

Whether Prince Andrew behaved in a criminal manner or not, he was part of that ecosystem, along with all the other rich and powerful people Epstein went out of his way to court. But it was vulnerable, powerless young girls such as Giuffre that he really preyed upon. After all, it’s girls like this who make, in the words of royal experts, the least ‘credible’ witnesses.

Perpetrators of these crimes count on this: they target girls whose reliability can easily be called into question. Julie K Brown found this time and again while investigating Epstein. 

‘He essentially groomed them to believe that he was going to pull them out of the misery of their lives. Many of them had very difficult [lives]. Some of them were in foster homes. Their parents were on drugs… And he knew that. He studied them. He asked them questions about their life. So he found out exactly what their Achilles’ heel or their vulnerabilities were.’

It’s also worth remembering the fates of some of Epstein’s other victims, many of whom ended up with drug addictions or spending time in jail.

Leigh Patrick died at the age of 29 of a heroin overdose, her sister saying that her life spiralled out of control after she met Epstein at 16 (he paid her $300 to take her top off). Dainya Nida, also molested by Epstein at 16, attempted suicide.

One woman, identified in court only as Jane Doe 15, said she was assaulted by Epstein at 15, and that his abuse pushed her ‘to the point where I purchased a gun and drove myself to an isolated place to end my suffering’.

Michelle Licata, 16 when she was molested by Epstein, said that the anger she felt at her abuse had led her to punch holes in the wall.

It’s worth reminding ourselves of this as allies of Prince Andrew try to weaponise Virgina Giuffre’s vulnerabilities against her.

So whatever you think of the credibility of her car crash story, we must not forget she is still one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, and that he is still one of the most prolific paedophiles and sex traffickers of modern times.

Be more Beckham about your birthday! 

A photo David and Victoria Beckham posted as part of his 50th birthday celebrations

God bless David Beckham, who has just had a lavish dinner in Miami to celebrate his 50th. Apparently, the party was only the beginning of a month of events ahead of his actual birthday in May. By contrast, his wife Victoria had just the one do when she hit the same milestone a year ago. I wish she’d been more ostentatious about it, because the truth is we should all be more David Beckham when it comes to marking big birthdays. 

Was this an April Fools? 

Joseph Quinn, Barry Keoghan, Harris Dickinson and Paul Mescal will play George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and Paul McCartney respectively

I haven’t stopped laughing since seeing the cast of the new Sam Mendes biopics about the Beatles. 

Paul Mescal, Harris Dickinson, Barry Keoghan and Joseph Quinn look like a dreadful Gen Z tribute act – the Brainrot Beatles, if you will. 

Given that the announcement was made on April 1, I’m pretty sure it’s an April Fools that someone forgot to declare.

Running saved my life, too 

Romesh Ranganathan on the cover of Runner’s World magazine

How great to see Romesh Ranganathan on the new issue of Runner’s World, ahead of doing the London Marathon later this month. 

Romesh says he wants to be an ‘ambassador for runners who never thought they’d be runners’, and that the discipline has helped him to deal with ‘this inner voice that’s constantly telling me I’m a piece of s**t’. 

I know how he feels. Running has literally saved my life – I got sober after my first marathon back in 2017, which showed me there was a far better way to get my kicks. 

I’m now well and truly hooked, and hoping that the 45th London Marathon will be my third 26.2 miler. See you on the start line, Romesh. The full interview can be read in the May issue of Runner’s World UK, on sale now.

It’s not free speech, it’s intimidation 

The pro-life campaigner Livia Tossici-Bolt will tomorrow discover her fate after being put on trial last month for breaching the buffer zone around an abortion clinic in Bournemouth. 

The court case has led to the US State Department expressing ‘concerns’ about freedom of expression in Britain.

 I’m as passionate about defending free speech as the next person but please can we stop pretending that hanging around outside abortion clinics with placards is anything other than harassment and intimidation? 

Watch out James Bond – according to an MI5 guide that has been made public for the first time since 1945, women make better spies than men, because they are less conceited, and so less given to ‘loose talk’. As a female who struggles to keep her mouth shut, I’d say I’m very much the exception to that rule… but then, I could always be double bluffing. 

• Ever feel like life is a bit…too much? Bestselling author and journalist Bryony Gordon is here to ditch the shame and dive headfirst into life’s messier bits. Search for The Life of Bryony wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes released every Monday and Friday.