Epstein’s UK flights had alleged British abuse victims on board, BBC finds

Virtually 90 flights linked to Jeffrey Epstein arrived at and departed from UK airports, some with British ladies on board who say they had been abused by the billionaire, a BBC investigation has discovered.

We have now established that three British ladies who had been allegedly trafficked seem in Epstein’s data of flights out and in of the UK and different paperwork associated to the convicted intercourse offender.

US legal professionals representing a whole lot of Epstein victims advised the BBC it was “stunning” that there has by no means been a “full-scale UK investigation” into his actions on the opposite facet of the Atlantic.

The UK was one of many “centrepieces” of Epstein’s operations, one stated.

Testimony from one in every of these British victims helped convict Epstein’s confederate Ghislaine Maxwell of kid sex-trafficking within the US in 2021. However the sufferer has by no means been contacted by UK police, her Florida-based lawyer Brad Edwards advised the BBC.

The girl, given the identify Kate within the trial, was listed as having been on greater than 10 flights paid for by Epstein out and in of the UK between 1999 and 2006.

The BBC will not be publishing additional particulars concerning the ladies within the paperwork due to the chance this would possibly determine them.

US lawyer Sigrid McCawley stated the British authorities have “not taken a more in-depth take a look at these flights, at the place he was at, who he was seeing at these moments, and who was with him on these planes, and carried out a full investigation”.

Underneath the Jeffrey Epstein Transparency Act, the deadline to launch all US authorities recordsdata on the sex-offender financier is Friday.

However the flight logs had been amongst 1000’s of paperwork from courtroom circumstances and Epstein’s property which have been already made public over the previous yr, revealing extra about his time within the UK, resembling journeys to royal residences.

The BBC examined these paperwork as a part of an investigation attempting to piece collectively Epstein’s actions within the UK.

It revealed that:

• The unfinished flight logs and manifests document 87 flights linked to Epstein – dozens greater than had been beforehand identified – arriving or departing from UK airports between the early Nineteen Nineties and 2018
• Unidentified “females” had been listed among the many passengers travelling into and out of the UK within the logs
• Fifteen of the UK flights befell after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting intercourse from a minor, which ought to have raised questions from immigration officers

Though Epstein died in jail in 2019, earlier than his trial on expenses of trafficking minors for intercourse, authorized consultants have advised the BBC a UK investigation may reveal whether or not British-based folks enabled his crimes.

Two months in the past the BBC despatched the Metropolitan Police, which has beforehand examined allegations about Epstein’s actions in Britain, publicly out there details about the UK flights with suspected trafficking victims on board.

Later, we despatched the Met an in depth listing of questions on whether or not it will examine proof of attainable British victims of Epstein trafficked out and in of the UK.

The Met didn’t reply to our questions. On Saturday, it launched a broader assertion saying that it had “not obtained any further proof that will help reopening the investigation” into Epstein and Maxwell’s trafficking actions within the UK.

“Ought to new and related data be delivered to our consideration”, together with any ensuing from the discharge of fabric within the US, “we are going to assess it”, the Met stated.

US lawyer Brad Edwards, who has been representing Epstein victims since 2008, advised us “three or 4” of his shoppers are British ladies “who had been abused on British soil each by Jeffrey Epstein and others”.

Different victims had been recruited within the UK, trafficked to the US and abused there, he stated.

Mr Edwards stated he’s additionally representing ladies of different nationalities who say they had been trafficked to the UK for abuse by Epstein and others.

Our evaluation reveals Epstein used business and chartered flights, in addition to his personal planes, to journey to the UK and to rearrange transport for others, together with alleged trafficking victims.

Greater than 50 of the flights concerned his personal jets, largely flying to and from Luton Airport, with a number of flights at Birmingham Worldwide Airport, and one arrival and departure every at RAF Marham in west Norfolk and at Edinburgh Airport.

Restricted data of economic and chartered flights taken by Epstein, or paid for by him, present dozens extra journeys, primarily through London Heathrow, but in addition Stansted and Gatwick.

In a variety of the logs of Epstein’s personal planes, together with some detailing journeys to the UK, ladies on the flight are recognized solely as unnamed “females”.

“He is completely selecting airports the place he feels it will likely be simpler for him to get out and in with victims that he is trafficking,” stated Ms McCawley.

Personal plane didn’t have to supply passenger particulars to UK authorities earlier than departure in the identical approach as business plane throughout the interval coated by the paperwork we examined. The Residence Workplace advised us they had been “not topic to the identical centralised record-keeping”.

That loophole was solely closed in April final yr.

Kate, the British lady who testified in opposition to Maxwell, was on a few of the business flights within the data we examined. She described in courtroom that she had been 17 when Maxwell befriended her and launched her to Epstein – who then sexually abused her at Maxwell’s central London house.

Within the 2021 trial, she described how Maxwell gave her a schoolgirl outfit to put on and requested her to search out different women for Epstein. In addition to the dozen flights to and from the UK, Kate advised the courtroom she had been flown to Epstein’s island within the US Virgin Islands, New York and Palm Seaside in Florida, the place she says the abuse continued into her 30s.

Mr Edwards, her lawyer, advised BBC Information that even after that testimony, Kate has “by no means been requested” by any UK authorities any questions on her expertise – “not even a telephone name”.

He stated that if British police had been to launch an investigation into Epstein’s actions and his enablers, Kate could be joyful to assist.

Prof Bridgette Carr, a human-trafficking knowledgeable on the College of Michigan Legislation Faculty, stated trafficking circumstances often require many individuals working collectively.

“It is by no means only one unhealthy particular person,” she stated. “You do not take into consideration the accountant and the lawyer and the banker – or all of the bankers – and all these those who needed to implicitly, and typically explicitly, be OK with what was taking place for it to proceed.”

There are additionally questions on how Epstein was in a position to journey freely to the UK after his 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for intercourse, which meant he needed to register as a intercourse offender in Florida, New York and the US Virgin Islands.

Epstein was launched from jail in 2009 after serving 13 months. Paperwork recommend Epstein took a Virgin Atlantic flight from the US to London Heathrow in September 2010, simply two months after he accomplished his probation on home arrest.

Residence Workplace guidelines on the time stated international nationals who obtained a jail sentence of 12 months or extra ought to, typically, have been refused entry.

However immigration lawyer Miglena Ilieva, managing companion at ILEX Legislation Group, advised us that US residents didn’t often require a UK visa for brief stays, so there was no utility course of the place they might be requested about prison convictions.

“It was very a lot on the discretion of the person immigration officer who would obtain this particular person on the border,” she stated.

The Residence Workplace stated it doesn’t maintain immigration and visa data past 10 years and added “it’s longstanding authorities coverage that we don’t routinely touch upon particular person circumstances”.

Throughout the Eighties, Epstein additionally used a international passport – issued in Austria together with his image and a false identify – to enter the UK in addition to France, Spain and Saudi Arabia, in line with US authorities.

Epstein additionally listed London as his place of residence in 1985, when he utilized for a substitute passport, ABC Information has beforehand reported.

In its assertion on Saturday, the Met stated it had contacted “a number of different potential victims” when it examined 2015 allegations by Virginia Giuffre that she had been trafficked for sexual exploitation by Epstein and Maxwell.

Ms Giuffre additionally stated she was compelled to have intercourse with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on three events, together with when she was 17 at Maxwell’s house in London, in 2001. The previous prince has constantly denied the allegations in opposition to him.

The Met stated its examination of Ms Giuffre’s claims “didn’t lead to any allegation of prison conduct in opposition to any UK-based nationals” and it concluded that “different worldwide authorities had been finest positioned to progress these allegations”.

That call was reviewed in August 2019 and once more in 2021 and 2022 with the identical end result, it stated.

However for lawyer Sigrid McCawley, the message the Met is sending to victims is “that in the event you come to regulation enforcement and this can be a highly effective particular person you are reporting on… it won’t get investigated.”