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Photos of child offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell released by the US Department of Justice seem to show how Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor helped them get into the British elite.
Epstein and Maxwell are pictured hunting with the former prince at Balmoral and with him in the royal casket at Ascot. A separate photograph shows Maxwell outside 10 Downing Street.
One image shows Mountbatten-Windsor reclining on the laps of five people, whose faces have been altered, his head close to a woman’s neck. In the picture, Maxwell can be seen looking down and smiling.
Sky News reported on Saturday that the photo was taken at Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth’s final Norfolk residence, where King Charles and his family will be spending Christmas. The broadcaster said it showed the photo and other photos taken there.
Another photo, which is understood to have been taken in 2002, shows Maxwell looking in Winston Churchill’s war rooms, the secret place of the British Prime Minister during the Second World War, with a group that includes former US president Bill Clinton and actor Kevin Spacey.
Documents related to Epstein, a convicted child sex offender who died in prison in 2019, were uploaded on Friday night to the website of the US Department of Justice, which kept users online as they faced “numerous inquiries”.
The release of the data came after the deputy US attorney general, Todd Blanche, said that “several hundred files” of the “Epstein files” had been released before a legal deadline. He said the need to protect Epstein’s victims meant thousands more would be released in the coming weeks.
The US Department of Justice was legally required to make all files related to the Epstein investigation public by midnight on Friday after the Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed.
The images released on Friday, which also include photos of Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, help explain how he gave Epstein and Maxwell access to the upper echelons of British life.
Most of the photos have not been released, but it is understood that Epstein and Maxwell were invited to a women’s day at Ascot on 22 June 2000 by Mountbatten-Windsor. Although the event was also attended by the late queen and the queen mother, Mountbatten-Windsor has previously said that Epstein and Maxwell were her guests.
Epstein committed suicide in a federal prison in Manhattan, New York, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He previously pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008. Maxwell was convicted of child trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2021.
Mountbatten-Windsor’s relationship with Epstein eventually led to her exit from royal life. He resigned in 2019 after an infamous Newsnight interview in which he said he had no regrets about his association with the financier despite his criminal record.
Three years later, he paid millions to Virginia Giuffre, who said she was sexually abused by Epstein as a teenager. Mountbatten-Windsor dismissed Giuffre’s case even though he said he had never met him.
The publication of the memoir after the death of Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, and the release of the United States government from Epstein’s estate, brought a great deal of scrutiny to his relationship with the financier. Mountbatten-Windsor’s brother, the king, abdicated his royal duties in October.
Among the hundreds of photos in the files are several photos of Clinton, who the spokeswoman said cut ties with Epstein when his wrongdoings came to light. Others include singers Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. There is no suggestion that this indicates any wrongdoing on their part.
Peter Mandelson, who was sacked as UK ambassador to the US earlier this year after revealing his relationship with Epstein, is pictured with him giving him a birthday cake. Mandelson helped facilitate a meeting between Epstein and former Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2002.
Most of the images and text are there highly modifiedto encourage criticized by US lawmakers and lawyers for Epstein’s victims.
On Saturday, Epstein survivor Liz Stein told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that she felt the US Department of Justice was “blatantly flouting” the Epstein Transparency Act by failing to release the details.
“What we’re concerned about is the gradual release of incomplete information without anything we’re looking for,” he said. “It’s important that we see everything they put out.
“We hope that this is a path to justice. The release of all these documents is costing us a lot of money, it’s also causing a lot of danger and pain but we feel very strongly that it should be released because we need to know what happened in this case.
“This is a sex-trafficking case that has spanned more than three decades, spanned continents, involved political authorities and when it comes down to it, we just need all the evidence of these crimes to get justice, finally.
“I think there are mixed feelings. There is a fear that we will not see all that has been released, we are hopeful that some of the people who have committed these crimes will be held accountable but I think that the information that was released today was so much that it will take time for us all to get through it and we don’t know how we feel.”
