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Almost 90 flights linked to Jeffrey Epstein arrived at and departed from UK airports, some with British women on board who say they were abused by the billionaire, a BBC investigation has revealed.
Three British women who say they were trafficked appear in Epstein’s records of flights in and out of the UK and other documents related to the convicted sex offender.
US lawyers representing hundreds of Epstein victims said it was “shocking” that there has never been a major UK investigation into his activities there. One suggested the UK was a “centrepiece” of Epstein’s operations.
Testimony from one of the three British victims helped convict Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell of child sex-trafficking in the United States in 2021. However the victim has never been contacted by UK police, according to her lawyer. The woman, given the name Kate in the trial, was listed as having been on more than 10 flights paid for by Epstein in and out of the UK between 1999 and 2006.
US lawyer Sigrid McCawley said the British authorities have “not taken a closer look at those flights, at where he was at, who he was seeing at those moments, and who was with him on those planes”.
The flight logs are among thousands of documents from court cases and Epstein’s estate which have been made public over the past year. Fifteen of the UK flights took place after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor, which should have alerted British authorities.
Epstein died in jail in 2019, before his trial on charges of trafficking minors for sex. Legal experts have told the BBC a UK investigation could reveal whether people based in Britain helped enable his crimes.
Clive Myrie presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Chi Chi Izundu.
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