Police assessing records of private flights at Stansted after publication of Epstein files | Jeffrey Epstein
Police are assessing information about private flights to and from Stansted airport following the release of files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It comes after former prime minister Gordon Brown claimed documents showed in “graphic detail” how Epstein was able to use his Essex headquarters to “fly girls in from Latvia, Lithuania and Russia”.
In an article for the New Statesman, Brown said the Epstein files showed the financier’s jet made 90 round-trip flights to UK airports; 15 of those were after he was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a child.
He said Epstein had “bragged” about how cheap Stansted’s airport fees were compared to Paris.
Brown said Stansted airport was “where women were transferred from one Epstein plane to another”, adding that “women arriving in the UK on private planes will not need a British visa”.
Citing evidence uncovered by the BBC that showed “incomplete flight records showed unnamed passengers simply labeled as ‘women'”, he said authorities appeared to “never know what was going on”.
On Tuesday an Essex police spokesman said: “We are assessing information that has emerged following the release of the US DoJ (Department of Justice) Epstein files in relation to private flights to and from Stansted airport.”
A spokesperson for Stansted airport said: “All private aircraft at London Stansted operate through independent fixed base operators who handle all aspects of private and corporate aviation in accordance with regulatory requirements.
“All immigration and customs checks for passengers arriving by private plane are carried out directly by the Border Force.
“They use completely independent terminals not operated by London Stansted and no private jet passengers enter the main airport terminal.
“The airport does not manage or have visibility into passenger arrangements on privately operated aircraft.”
In December, a BBC investigation found that from the early 1990s to 2018, 87 flights linked to Epstein landed at or departed from airports in the UK.
The statement from Essex police comes after the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said a national group had been set up to support UK police forces “assessing the allegations” following the publication of the Epstein files.
A spokesman for the NPCC said: “A national co-ordination group has been established to support a small number of forces assessing allegations arising following the release of the US Department of Justice Epstein files.
“We continue to work collaboratively to evaluate publicly disclosed details to allow us to understand the potential impacts that may arise from the millions of documents released.
“We continue to support our partners and contribute in any way we can to help achieve justice for victims and survivors, and we encourage anyone who needs support to come and visit. whenyouareready.co.uk.”
The investigation comes after the Justice Department released 3.5 million pages of information about Epstein. A panel of independent experts appointed by the UN human rights council on Tuesday said parts of the released documents indicate the existence of a “global criminal organisation”.
The experts said: “The scale, nature, systemic nature and transnational scope of these atrocities against women and girls are so grave that some of them could plausibly meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity.”
Thames Valley police are looking into allegations that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor used his position as British trade envoy to give Epstein potentially sensitive information.
They are also examining allegations that Epstein sent a second woman to England to have sex with the former prince in Windsor in 2010.
A lawyer representing the late Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim who alleges Mountbatten-Windsor sexually assaulted her, said the former prince should be given “safe passage” to the US to testify about Epstein.
David Boies said: “He has an obligation to say what he knows. Now, if he’s afraid of being arrested in the United States, we have 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 to come and tell what he knows.”
“But he knows a lot. I don’t know how much because they dropped the case we filed against them right before his statement was taken.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Liam Byrne, chairman of parliament’s cross-party business and trade committee, said MPs could potentially investigate Mountbatten-Windsor’s work as trade envoy.
Emails published in the Epstein files show that the former prince, who served as trade ambassador between 2001 and 2011, shared reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam with Epstein.
Thames Valley police previously said they were in talks with experts from the Crown Prosecution Service regarding the allegations.
Mountbatten-Windsor has previously denied any wrongdoing.
