Fallout from Maxwell conviction

Child sex abusers and their enablers everywhere, not only in the US, should learn from the conviction in New York of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell for helping her now deceased financier boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein, prey on minors. For what prosecutors described rightly as “one of the worst crimes imaginable”, Maxwell, 60, a friend of royalty, celebrities and politicians, faces the prospect of spending the rest of her life in prison. That is as it should be. Child sex traffickers deserve no mercy. But in meting out punishment to Maxwell, US legal processes should not stop there. Even more than the recent cases of actor Bill Cosby and movie producer Harvey Weinstein, Maxwell’s trial revealed an international network of wealthy friends that demands full investigation by the FBI.

It includes Prince Andrew, who “cannot escape the consequences of Maxwell’s conviction”, The Times noted. The Queen’s second son already faces a civil suit in the US from Virginia Giuffre, who alleges she was forced to have sex with him on three separate occasions in 2001 and 2002 at Maxwell’s and Epstein’s behest, when she was 17. Although he emphatically denies any wrongdoing, it was at Maxwell’s London home that the prince was photographed with his arm around Ms Giuffre, an image he claims may have been faked. He maintained his friendship with Epstein after the financier’s conviction for soliciting an under-age girl for prostitution. He took him to the Balmoral estate and seated him and Maxwell in one of the Queen’s favourite garden seats, reportedly. As The Times said after Maxwell’s conviction, “what is already admitted, never mind what is alleged, is sufficient to bar him permanently from public life … (the Queen’s) second son must now be instructed, and not merely encouraged, to abandon any hope of rehabilitation of his reputation. It will never come”. Anything less would do even worse damage to the House of Windsor, especially in Australia as we look ahead to the post-Elizabethan era. Prince Andrew must be answerable to the US courts.

Jurors in the Maxwell trial were shown flight logs from Epstein’s private jets in which regular travellers included former US presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. There is no evidence they were aware of Epstein’s activities. They strongly deny it. In plea bargaining for a lesser sentence Maxwell may be willing to make a full disclosure. Recruiting young girls for sexual abuse is a monstrous crime. It demands pursuit and punishment of perpetrators, whatever their status.