Peter Mandelson Finally Makes Personal Apology To Jeffrey Epstein's Victms
Peter Mandelson has finally issued a personal apology to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein for continuing his friendship with the late paedophile.
The Labour peer and former UK ambassador to Washington was criticised for failing to do so during a BBC interview on Sunday.
Lord Mandelson would only say sorry “for a system that refused to hear” Epstein’s victims or give them protection.
He said: “I was not culpable, I was not knowledgable about what he was doing, and I will regret until my dying day the fact that powerless women were not given the protection they were entitled to expect.”
The interview, with Laura Kuenssberg, provoked widespread criticism of Mandelson for refusing to say sorry for standing by Epstein even after his conviction for soliciting girls as young as 14 for prostitution.
The former ambassador said he was “kept separate” from the multi-millionaire financier’s sexual life because Mandelson is gay and therefore was not included.
But in a statement to the BBC’s Newsnight programme on Monday night, Mandelson said: “Yesterday, I did not want to be held responsible for his [Epstein’s] crimes of which I was ignorant, not indifferent, because of the lies he told me and so many others.
“I was wrong to believe him following his conviction and to continue my association with him afterwards. I apologise unequivocally for doing so to the women and girls who suffered.”
Mandelson was sacked as US ambassador in September following a string of revelations about his ongoing relationship with Epstein.
An alleged “birthday book” released by the House Oversight Committee in America contained a message from Mandelson in which he described Epstein as his “best pal”.
Mandelson also told Epstein in an email that “your friends stay with you and love you” even as he was facing child underage sex charges in 2008.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York in 2019.