BBC finds alleged British abuse victims on Epstein’s UK flight

A BBC investigation has found that nearly 90 flights linked to Jeffrey Epstein took off and landed at UK airports, some carrying British women who say they were abused by the billionaire.

We have identified three British women suspected of being trafficked who appear in records of Epstein’s flights in and out of the UK, as well as other documents relating to the convicted sex offender.

A US lawyer representing hundreds of Epstein’s victims told the BBC it was “shocking” that the UK had never conducted a “full investigation” into his activities across the Atlantic.

One person said the UK was one of the “hubs” of Epstein’s operations.

Testimony from one of the British victims helped Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell commit child sex trafficking crimes in the United States in 2021. But the victim’s Florida lawyer, Brad Edwards, told the BBC that the victim had never been contacted by British police.

The woman, named at the trial as Kate, was listed as having taken more than 10 flights in and out of the UK paid for by Epstein between 1999 and 2006.

The BBC has not released further details about the women in the documents because it might reveal their identities.

US lawyer Sigrid McCawley said British authorities “failed to scrutinize those flights, where he was at the time, who he saw at those moments and who was on those planes with him and conduct a full investigation”.

The deadline to release all U.S. government documents on the sex crimes financier under the Jeffrey Epstein Transparency Act is Friday.

But the flight logs are part of thousands of court cases and Epstein estate documents that have been made public over the past year, revealing more about his time in the UK, such as trips to the royal residence.

The BBC examined the documents as part of its investigation to try to piece together Epstein’s activities in the UK.

It reveals:

• Incomplete flight logs and manifests record 87 Epstein-linked flights arriving or departing from British airports between the early 1990s and 2018, dozens more than previously known.
• Unidentified ‘female’ listed in logs among passengers traveling to and from UK
• Fifteen UK flights took off after Epstein was convicted of soliciting sex from a minor in 2008, which should have raised questions from immigration officials

Although Epstein died in prison in 2019 for trafficking minors for sex, legal experts told the BBC that a British investigation could reveal whether Britons contributed to his crimes.

Two months ago, the BBC sent public information to the Metropolitan Police about a UK flight carrying suspected victims of human trafficking. The Metropolitan Police has previously reviewed allegations regarding Epstein’s activities in the UK.

We later sent the Met a detailed list of questions asking whether it would investigate evidence that Epstein may have been trafficked to and from British victims in the UK.

The Met did not respond to our questions. On Saturday, it issued a wider statement saying it had “not received any additional evidence to support the reopening of an investigation into Epstein and Maxwell’s human trafficking activities in the UK”.

The Met said “if new relevant information comes to our attention”, including any arising from the publication of material in the US, “we will assess it”.

Brad Edwards, an American lawyer who has represented Epstein’s victims since 2008, told CNN that “three or four” of his clients are British women “who were abused by Jeffrey Epstein and others on British soil”.

He said other victims were recruited in Britain and then trafficked to the United States where they were abused.

Edwards said he also represents women of other nationalities who say they were trafficked to the UK and abused by Epstein and others.

Our analysis shows that Epstein used commercial and charter flights, as well as his private jet, to travel to the UK and arrange transportation for others, including alleged victims of human trafficking.

More than 50 of the flights involved his private jet, mostly to and from Luton Airport, with several departures at Birmingham International Airport and one arrival and departure each at RAF Marham and Edinburgh in west Norfolk.

Limited records of commercial and charter flights that Epstein took or paid for show dozens more flights, mainly through London Heathrow but also at Stansted and Gatwick.

In many of the logs from Epstein’s private jet, including some detailing his travels to Britain, the women on the plane were identified only as unnamed “women.”

“He would absolutely choose an airport that he thought would be easier to access with the victims he trafficked,” Ms McCauley said.

During the period covered by the documents we reviewed, private jets were not required to provide passenger details to UK authorities before departure, as were commercial jets. The Home Office told us they are “not subject to the same centralized record-keeping”.

The loophole was only closed last April.

Kate, the British woman who testified against Maxwell, had flown on some commercial flights, according to records we examined. She told the court she was 17 when Maxwell befriended her and introduced her to Epstein, who then sexually abused her at Maxwell’s home in central London.

During the 2021 trial, she described how Maxwell gave her a schoolgirl outfit and asked her to find other girls for Epstein. Kate told the court that as well as more than a dozen flights to and from the UK, she also flew to Epstein’s island in the US Virgin Islands, New York and Palm Beach, Florida, where she said the abuse continued into her 30s.

Her lawyer Mr Edwards told BBC News that even after giving evidence, Kate had “never been asked any questions” about her experience by any British authorities – “not even a phone call”.

He said Kate would be happy to help if British police launched an investigation into Epstein’s activities and his enablers.

Professor Bridget Carr, a human trafficking expert at the University of Michigan Law School, said human trafficking cases often require the cooperation of multiple people.

“The bad guy is never alone,” she said. “You don’t think about accountants and lawyers and bankers — or all bankers — and all these people who have to implicitly and sometimes explicitly accept what’s going on in order to continue.”

There have also been questions about how Epstein was able to travel freely to the UK after his 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor, which meant he had to register as a sex offender in Florida, New York and the US Virgin Islands.

Epstein was released from prison in 2009 after serving 13 months. Documents show Epstein flew from the United States to London Heathrow Airport on a Virgin Atlantic flight in September 2010, just two months after completing his probation on house arrest.

Home Office regulations at the time said that in most cases, foreign citizens sentenced to 12 months or more in prison should be refused entry.

But immigration lawyer Miglena Ilieva, managing partner of ILEX Law Group, told us that US citizens generally do not need a UK visa for short-term stays, so there is no application process asking whether they have any criminal convictions.

“A lot of it depends on the decision of the individual immigration officer who receives the person at the border,” she said.

The Home Office said it does not keep immigration and visa records older than 10 years, adding that “it is long-standing government policy that we do not routinely comment on individual cases”.

In the 1980s, Epstein also used a foreign passport (issued in Austria with his photo and a false name) to enter the United Kingdom as well as France, Spain and Saudi Arabia, according to U.S. authorities.

Epstein also listed London as his place of residence when he applied for a replacement passport in 1985, ABC News previously reported.

The Met said in a statement on Saturday that it had contacted “several other potential victims” as it reviewed Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 allegation that she was trafficked for sexual exploitation by Epstein and Maxwell.

Ms Giuffre also said she was forced to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on three occasions, including at his home in Maxwell, London, in 2001 when she was 17. The former prince has always denied the accusations against him.

The Met said a review of Ms Giuffre’s allegations “did not result in any allegation of criminal conduct against any British citizen” and concluded that “other international authorities are best placed to advance the allegations”.

The decision was reviewed in August 2019 and again in 2021 and 2022 with the same outcome.

But for attorney Sigrid McCawley, the Met’s message to victims is that “if you come to law enforcement and the person you’re reporting to is a powerful person… you’re not going to be investigated.”