Starmer apologises to Epstein victims for appointing Mandelson and ‘believing his lies’ – follow live

Details of Mandelson-Epstein relationship available since 2023published at 14:21 GMT

14:21 GMT

Simon Jack
Business editor

The prime minister this afternoon said that while
he knew that Peter Mandelson maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
after he was convicted of soliciting sex with a minor, he had no idea of the
“depth” of the relationship.

Publicly available references to the depth of the
relationship were available from 2023. In 2019 US banking giant JP Morgan
conducted an internal investigation into the bank’s relationship with Jeffrey
Epstein.

While the report was never publicly published,
details and findings from the report were published in media reports and in
court filings.

In June 2023, a case in a New York court between
the US Virgin Islands (where Epstein was a resident) and JP Morgan Chase
included documents from the JP Morgan report. The extracts used in court
included the following exhibit:

“Jeffrey Epstein appears to maintain a
particularly close relationship with Prince Andrew the Duke of York and Lord
Peter Mandelson, a senior member of the British government.”

JP
Morgan Chase settled the case with the US Virgin Islands in September 2023 for
$75 million without admitting any liability.