I do know why Epstein’s circle, together with Fergie and Andrew, stayed buddies with a paedophile – and it wasn’t simply cash. Yet once more, kids as younger as 14 aren’t judged to be ‘correct’ victims of abuse: MAGGIE OLIVER

We’ve now had nearly two weeks of sordid and sickening details from the latest tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice. And nothing can quash the rage I feel.

It’s not just his friendships with high profile figures – including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson, who were photographed with him – that raises concerns.

It’s once again learning about the conveyor belt of young girls, most of them children, who passed through the clutches of Epstein and his cronies, both on his Lolita Express jet and ‘Paedo Island’ in the Caribbean. I can see a truly horrifying but familiar pattern.

It’s the same pattern that made me stand up against Senior Officers at the Greater Manchester Police in 2012.

As a Detective Constable working on the Rochdale grooming gangs investigation, I blew the whistle on my own force for covering up decades of abuse. Back then, I saw evil perpetrators get away with unspeakable acts, including rape, against children as young as 11 and 12. Even when the girls plucked up the courage to report the abuse and call the police – the authorities would side with the rapists, and they’d get away scot-free.

The same thing happened with Epstein’s victims, some of them just 13 years old, who have – even to date – never been given a voice. The men who associated with Epstein, who took his money, holidayed on his island and enjoyed his wild parties, will have seen these children in his company – of this, there is no doubt.

There is video footage of Epstein chasing young girls around his Florida kitchen, their shrieks somewhere between mirth and fear; and there is that much scrutinised photograph of the late Virginia Giuffre, then 17, standing next to then-Prince Andrew in 2001. 

Though there is no suggestion Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor or others named in the documents committed any wrongdoing, there is evidence that the girls Epstein associated with were underage – and that they were coerced into acts they did not consent to.

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from children as young as 14 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and yet emails from Sarah Ferguson show her apologising for publicly calling him a paedophile and promising to find a way to backtrack. 

She said she planned to tell the press it was ‘wrong’ to call Epstein a sex offender because he was now ‘moving on with his life’, and denied referring to him as a paedophile, saying: ‘I did NOT. I would NOT. I certainly would not want to hurt Jeffrey anymore, by saying such an untruth.’

Meanwhile, Virginia Giuffre who was hired as a ‘masseuse’ by the financier in 2000 and tragically took her own life last April, wrote in her memoir that she feared she would die as a ‘sex slave’ to him.

And details have recently emerged about a 16- or 17-year-old who claims she had a baby with Epstein – and that the child was snatched away 10 minutes after birth.

Last week Mountbatten Windsor’s brother Prince Edward entreated the world to ‘remember the victims’ when asked about the impact the Epstein files were having on the Royal Family. He is right, and yet not enough people have said it.

As in Rochdale, Manchester and Rotherham, the girls ensnared in Epstein’s vile circle were deceived – here, they were promised glittering careers, money, and a chance to create a good future.

They were targeted because they were vulnerable and had nobody to protect them; perhaps they had difficult domestic backgrounds, or needed the money, or had been abandoned by their families and friends. They were young, good-looking and naïve – ideal prey for sexual predators like Epstein.

Once he had them in his control, he trapped them. He took them on his plane to the other side of the world. He isolated them from their families. He left them with nowhere to go, no way to escape, unless they complied with whatever he asked them to do.

And after he had his way with them, he thought he could simply throw them to the wind. It was, to him, open season – with no consequences or accountability. In his eyes, he was a somebody; these children were nobodies, his to abuse and discard.

Using the word ‘children’ here is important. Calling them ‘women’ downplays the magnitude of what happened and is, I think, a way of whitewashing others’ involvement. This was a man in his 50s, and, in many cases, these were children who had barely entered their teens. What he did to them was abuse. If you knew about it and did nothing, that makes you a monster too.

In the two decades I’ve been working with victims of childhood sexual abuse, I’ve come across thousands of heartbreaking stories like this. I’ve seen 11- and 12-year-olds, plied with drink and drugs, taken to houses in the middle of nowhere, or dumped in the dead of night with no shoes and no coat. I’ve seen a 14-year-old taken to a stranger’s flat, surrounded by a gang of men, and burned with a heated spoon when she refused to have sex with them. 

Being coerced, isolated and abused by someone you liked or trusted leaves a victim with nowhere to turn. Over time, their hope and faith in humanity completely disappears.

But what of the men – and not just the famous ones, but the staff, the associates, the people responsible for ferrying these children into Epstein’s hands? Why did they remain silent?

Many claim they knew nothing of Epstein’s abusive behaviour. But I beg to differ. That is simply the coward’s way out.

Anyone spending time in his company, couldn’t have failed to notice the constant stream of children through the door – not just once, but every single night for years and years.

But Epstein was a clever man and he surrounded himself with others who simply had too much to lose by speaking out. It was – like my old police force – an old boys’ club. They all stood as one and they all protected each other.

It’s the same story we’ve seen play out at the top level of leading institutions: the BBC during the Jimmy Savile inquiry; Hollywood producers and Harvey Weinstein; the Catholic church at the height of its child sex abuse scandal.

Epstein and his pals may not have been authority figures in the official sense, but to the children involved, their power and vast fortunes made them formidable. They pulled all the strings.

By speaking out against what they saw, even if they weren’t personally involved, these men risked losing access to the exclusive club Epstein ran. They risked tarnishing their own reputations, potentially damaging wholesome family lives and flourishing careers.

This, it seems, was more important to them than saving the victims whose childhoods were being destroyed by Epstein’s actions.

As long as their names were kept out of it, they had no qualms about throwing these children to the wolves. There is a well known quote that I keep coming back to: ‘All it takes for evil to thrive is that good people do nothing’, and once again this is what we see here. They could have redeemed themselves – and broken the cycle of abuse – by speaking out.

Yet they did nothing. They will forever carry the shame of inaction.

I know all too well that blowing the whistle on wrongdoing is not an easy thing to do. When I resigned, I lost everything – my home, my career, my income. For a while, I thought I was losing my marbles. I also feared I would go to prison due to the threats made when I was threatening to go public with my knowledge.

But the greater responsibility for me was to follow my conscience, to make sure those children knew I’d tried to speak out for them and told the truth. I did it for them, and for my own four children. I’ve been banging that drum for 13 years now – and I won’t ever stop.

For, much like in Rochdale, we still have a long way to go in bringing the perpetrators to account.

Epstein may be dead, some others may have lost their titles, or resigned from their jobs as a result. But true accountability for the heinous acts that took place has not been enforced.

This is yet another case of the powerful protecting the powerful, putting their own reputations above all else, and placing blame on the victims. Nobody stood up for these young girls at the time.

The least we owe them is to shout it from the rooftops now – and show that no matter how rich, how powerful, or how immune you think you are from prosecution, child sex abuse is the very worst sort of criminal offence.

If you are a survivor of abuse, at risk of childhood sexual exploitation or need support or advice on this issue, contact The Maggie Oliver Foundation themaggieoliverfoundation.com

As told to Sarah Rainey