British police have expanded their interest in the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s links to Britain, by admitting for the first time they are looking at claims he used dozens of private flights into UK airports to traffic women.
It comes after former prime minister Gordon Brown said that documents about Epstein released in the US showed in “graphic detail” how the disgraced financier, with links to high-profile people including the former Prince Andrew, was able to use Stansted airport in Essex to “fly in girls from Latvia, Lithuania and Russia”.
Essex police on Friday had repeatedly declined to confirm to the Guardian whether it was assessing claims that Stansted had been used for such flights. On Tuesday, the force admitted it was.
Police in the UK are keen to show, sources say, that they will investigate without fear or favour, with allegations about Epstein and his links to the powerful swirling around Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who is the king’s brother.
In all, four British police forces are now confirmed to be assessing claims to see if full criminal investigations are needed.
The forces involved include Thames Valley police, which is assessing two separate claims against Mountbatten-Windsor and whether they merit a full criminal investigation, and Surrey police, which is assessing another allegation against him.
Mountbatten-Windsor has denied all wrongdoing.
The Metropolitan police is criminally investigating Peter Mandelson for allegedly passing information to Epstein while a Labour government minister.
Bedfordshire’s police force has been unable to say if it is assessing claims that Luton airport was used by planes linked to Epstein to traffic women. Some police sources say it is assessing such claims.
One senior policing source has told the Guardian that a “tsunami” of allegations was expected as a result of the release of millions of files relating to Epstein.
In an article for the New Statesman last week, Brown said the Epstein files showed the financier’s jet making 90 flights to or from UK airports, including 15 after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child.
He said Epstein “boasted” about how cheap Stansted’s airport charges were compared with Paris.
Brown said Stansted airport was where “women were transferred from one Epstein plane to another”, adding that “women arriving on private planes into Britain would not need British visas”.
He said it seemed as though authorities “never knew what was happening”, referring to evidence uncovered by the BBC which showed “incomplete flight logs, with unnamed passengers simply labelled as ‘female’”.
On Tuesday, an Essex police spokesperson said: “We are assessing the information that has emerged in relation to private flights into and out of Stansted airport following the publication of the US DoJ (Department of Justice) Epstein files.”
A Stansted airport spokesperson said: “All private aircraft at London Stansted operate through independent fixed base operators, which handle all aspects of private and corporate aviation in line with regulatory requirements.
“All immigration and customs checks for passengers arriving on private aircraft are carried out directly by Border Force.
“They use entirely independent terminals not operated by London Stansted and no private jet passengers enter the main airport terminal.
“The airport does not manage or have any visibility of passenger arrangements on privately operated aircraft.”
In December, a BBC investigation found 87 flights linked to Epstein had arrived at or departed from UK airports between the early 1990s and 2018.
The statement from Essex police comes after the Guardian revealed that the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said a national group had been set up to support UK police forces that are “assessing allegations” following the publication of the Epstein files.
A spokesperson for the NPCC said: “A national coordination group has been set up to support a small number of forces assessing allegations that have emerged following the publication of the US DoJ Epstein files.
“We continue to work collaboratively to assess the details being made public to allow us to understand any potential impact arising from the millions of documents that have been published.
“We continue to support our partners and contribute in any way we can to help secure justice for victims and survivors, and urge anyone who needs support to visit whenyouareready.co.uk.”
The investigation comes after the DoJ released 3.5m pages of information relating to Epstein. A panel of independent experts appointed by the UN human rights council on Tuesday said the tranche of documents released suggested the existence of a “global criminal enterprise”.
The experts said: “So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity.”
Thames Valley police are assessing claims that Mountbatten-Windsor used his position as a British trade envoy to give potentially sensitive information to Epstein.
They are also examining a claim that Epstein sent a second woman to the UK for sex with the former prince in Windsor in 2010.
A lawyer who represented the late Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim who alleged she had been sexually trafficked to Mountbatten-Windsor, said the former prince should be given “safe passage” to the US to give evidence about Epstein.
David Boies said: “He’s got an obligation to tell what he knows. Now, I also think that if he’s afraid of being arrested in the United States, we ought to give him safe passage to come to the United States to testify, because we don’t want there to be any excuse for him not coming and telling what he knows.
“But he knows a lot. How much I don’t know myself because they gave up in the litigation we had against them just before his deposition was supposed to be taken.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the chair of parliament’s cross-party business and trade committee, Liam Byrne, said MPs could potentially investigate Mountbatten-Windsor’s work as a trade envoy.
Emails released in the Epstein files appeared to show the former prince – who served as trade envoy between 2001 and 2011 – sharing reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam with Epstein.
Thames Valley police previously said they have held discussions with specialists from the Crown Prosecution Service about the allegations.
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