TripAdvisor pulls spoof Pizza Express Woking reviews

TripAdvisor has suspended reviews for Pizza Express Woking after Prince Andrew claimed during a controversial BBC Newsnight interview that he dined there 18 years ago.

The Duke said he had taken his daughter Princess Beatrice to the restaurant chain on the night he is accused of sleeping with Virginia Roberts, whom he allegedly met via convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

His comments sparked a flurry of tongue-in-cheek reviews. For instance, in reference to the admission that he had a medical condition that meant he was unable to sweat, one person wrote: "Love this place. I had a cracking pizza here in 2001. I remember it was 2001 because it was very strange the guy next to me had an American Hot pizza with extra chillies… not a drop of sweat came off him. Very odd."

These reviews appear to have been deleted, with the most recent of them being dated one week ago. A message at the top of the TripAdvisor page reads: "Due to a recent event that has attracted media attention and has caused an influx of review submissions that do not describe a first hand experience, we have temporarily suspended publishing new reviews for this listing."

A spokeswoman for the website said: "The recent media attention caused a spike of spoof review submissions that did not meet our guidelines... and we have taken the decision to temporarily suspend hosting new reviews on the restaurant's TripAdvisor listing page."