King 'should meet Epstein survivors' in US

Britain's King Charles III has been urged to meet the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse during his visit to the United States this week.

Along with US President Donald Trump, one of Epstein's most high-profile associates was the king's brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who has since been stripped of his royal titles and forced to move out of his royal lodgings.

Virginia Giuffre, who took her own life a year ago at the age of 41, claimed that she was sexually assaulted by Mountbatten-Windsor three times when she was a teenager. He has consistently denied her claims, but came to a multimillion-pound legal settlement with her in 2022.

Her family has said it would be "so powerful… to see (the king) acknowledging (the Epstein case) in a way that no one has ever acknowledged".

Speaking to the Times newspaper's The Royals podcast, Giuffre's sister-in-law Amanda Roberts said "Absolutely he should be meeting with the victims when he's here. His brother is implicated in the (Epstein) files. This could be a huge stain on the royal family moving forward".

In the face of "getting shunned by our own president (Donald Trump)," Roberts said the king would not need to "go into deep conversations" with the survivors, but for him "to take a moment" to meet them face to face would be hugely symbolically important in the on-going fight for recognition and justice.

Royal officials told the Times it would "not be possible" for the king and Queen Camilla to meet the victims, as they would not want to prejudice an on-going police investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor's activities, which saw him arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Another high-profile associate of Epstein's who was also arrested in the same month, and remains under investigation, is former British ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson.

Mandelson was sacked nine months into the job when the full extent of his ties to Epstein became clear, and claims and counter-claims about how much senior government officials knew about this before he was appointed have caused a political storm in the United Kingdom, with suggestions that he may have leaked confidential government market-sensitive information.

Now the European Commission's anti-fraud office is also looking at Mandelson's dealings with Epstein, during his four-year stint as a European trade commissioner between 2004 and 2008.

In addition, the BBC reports that email exchanges between the pair outside that timeframe, relating to the Eurozone crisis of 2010, have also come to light, sparking allegations that Mandelson may have given financier Epstein advance warning of a huge European bailout of the faltering Greek economy, which aimed to prevent economic problems spreading further across the Eurozone.

julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com