Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven Am. We're
Speaker 1: in this together. We'll play some more soon. That's what
Speaker 1: Prince Andrew wrote to Jeffrey Epstein in twenty eleven, the
Speaker 1: day after the photo of Andrew with Virginia Guffray hit
Speaker 1: the papers. The email undercuts Andrew's claim that the two
Speaker 1: had cut ties in twenty ten, and it's part of
Speaker 1: a new stream of documents surfacing as US Congress releases
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of pages from the Epstein files, and
Speaker 1: as the revelations about Prince Andrew keep coming. He's now
Speaker 1: dropped his titles and royal honors. Today reporter and author
Speaker 1: of The Lasting Calm witnessing the trial of Gilain Maxwell
Speaker 1: Lucia Osborne Crowley about the Prince's scandals and whether we
Speaker 1: should expect more to come out about the people in
Speaker 1: Epstein's orbit. It's Friday, October twenty four so, Lysia, right now,
Speaker 1: US Congress is pouring over this huge stash of emails
Speaker 1: related to Jeffrey Epstein. A number of those emails have
Speaker 1: now been published in the British press. So to begin with,
Speaker 1: can you just outline to me what's in them? What
Speaker 1: they've revealed.
Speaker 2: So we are seeing a number of developments at the moment, because,
Speaker 2: as you say, a Congress is going through their records
Speaker 2: about the investigations related to Jeffrey Epstein. Some of them
Speaker 2: have been published in the British press over the weekend.
Speaker 2: Those include really explosive allegations about Prince Andrew and his involvement.
Speaker 2: And then at the same time we also have this
Speaker 2: week the publication of Virginia Jeffrey's memoir about what she
Speaker 2: went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and allegedly
Speaker 2: Prince Andrew. In terms of your question about the emails,
Speaker 2: there's a couple of really, really really important things that
Speaker 2: we've learned, particularly around Prince Andrew and Virginia Giffray. There's
Speaker 2: an email which seems to show Prince Andrew asking his
Speaker 2: close protection officer to investigate Virginia Giffray just after she
Speaker 2: had made allegations of sexual abuse against him. That's an
Speaker 2: incredibly serious thing. A close protection officer is at least
Speaker 2: partly taxpayer funded. They are run by the police. The
Speaker 2: other really important thing that we learned in the email
Speaker 2: is that Prince Andrew has pretty clearly it seems lied
Speaker 2: to the public at least twice.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to understand. There's a photo inside Gelen
Speaker 3: Maxwell's house. Glen herself is in the background. Why would
Speaker 3: people not believe that you were there with her that night?
Speaker 4: They might well wish to believe it, But the photograph
Speaker 4: is taken upstairs, and I don't think I ever went
Speaker 4: upstairs in Gallenne's house.
Speaker 2: So in the interview, which I'm sure we all remember
Speaker 2: with Emily Matelist, he used the word categorically when he
Speaker 2: said that he had never met her.
Speaker 3: You can say categorically that you don't recall meeting Virginia Roberts,
Speaker 3: dining with her, dancing with her at tramp or going
Speaker 3: on to have sex with her in a bedroom in
Speaker 3: a house in Belgravia.
Speaker 4: I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened.
Speaker 2: Categorically is a very strong word. And we now have
Speaker 2: an email from the time where it seems that he's
Speaker 2: corresponding with Jeffrey Epstein and he's saying he may have
Speaker 2: met her. The email says, quote categorical denial of sexual
Speaker 2: relations full stop. Possible that I met her in a
Speaker 2: group with others, and possible that there is a photograph.
Speaker 2: We can to assume he knew that he wrote that
Speaker 2: email in twenty eleven saying he may have met her,
Speaker 2: and with that knowledge, he told the public and Emily
Speaker 2: Makee List categorically that he'd never met her.
Speaker 1: And another thing that he also said in that interview
Speaker 1: was that he had ended the friendship with Epstein in
Speaker 1: twenty ten, but this email would suggest otherwise exactly.
Speaker 2: So this is the second lie, might said.
Speaker 4: Look, because of what has happened, I don't think it
Speaker 4: is appropriate that we should remain in contact, and by
Speaker 4: mutual agreement, during that walk in the park, we decided
Speaker 4: that we would part company and I left. I think
Speaker 4: it was the next day, and to this day I
Speaker 4: never had any contact with him from that day forward.
Speaker 2: There's an email from the end of February twenty eleven
Speaker 2: which shows them in very close contact and says, you know,
Speaker 2: let's play together soon and stay in close touch. So
Speaker 2: again it's a lie. That email makes clear that there
Speaker 2: were no intentions of cutting off contact. He says, let's
Speaker 2: keep in close touch. Another huge revelation over the past
Speaker 2: few days is that there is another victim of Jeffrey Epstein,
Speaker 2: who he also introduced to Prince Andrew. So the mail
Speaker 2: on Sunday chose not to name this victim. This again
Speaker 2: comes from this cash of emails that we are seeing
Speaker 2: coming out of Congress. There's an email sent on August eleventh,
Speaker 2: twenty ten. Jeffrey Epstein wrote, I have a friend who
Speaker 2: I think you might enjoy having dinner with. She will
Speaker 2: be in London twenty to twenty four. And then Prince
Speaker 2: Andrew responds, of course I'm in Geneva until the morning
Speaker 2: of the twenty second, but would be delighted to her.
Speaker 2: So it seems incontrovertible that that is Epstein introducing someone
Speaker 2: to Prince Andrew for some reason. There's obviously nothing explicit
Speaker 2: in there about what the reason is, but it seems
Speaker 2: that the male on Sunday is saying that they know
Speaker 2: her to be a victim of sexual abuse at the
Speaker 2: hands of Epstein.
Speaker 1: And there have already been significant consequences for Prince Andrew.
Speaker 1: Tell me about what's happened.
Speaker 2: Yes, so he has quote unquote voluntarily given up some
Speaker 2: of his titles, most importantly his dukedom. A lot of
Speaker 2: people kind of say, oh, this is only symbolic, but
Speaker 2: symbols actually really do matter in these kinds of stories,
Speaker 2: because Buckingham Palace is not going to take decisions like
Speaker 2: this lightly. They have been trying to avoid dealing with
Speaker 2: this scandal for a long time. So most importantly, the
Speaker 2: police over here, the MET, have said that they are
Speaker 2: actively investigating this allegation that he asked his personal protection
Speaker 2: officer to investigate Virginia Giffrey. That consequence, to me, I
Speaker 2: think is the most significant because they haven't actually brought
Speaker 2: a charge yet. But it's quite surprising for the MET
Speaker 2: to even talk about bringing a criminal charge against a
Speaker 2: member of the royal family. You know. At first I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe they'll be aiming the charge at the protection officer
Speaker 2: himself for herself, but it seems pretty clear that they
Speaker 2: are actually talking about maybe bringing a criminal charge against
Speaker 2: a member of the royal family, and that is a
Speaker 2: really significant step for a police force that is historically
Speaker 2: extremely conservative.
Speaker 1: Coming up what's been revealed in Virginia Jeffrey's new memoir
Speaker 1: and Lutia, all of this is unfolding at the same
Speaker 1: time as Virginia Geoffrey's memoir It's called Nobody's Girl, is
Speaker 1: being released. So tell me a bit about the book
Speaker 1: and what's in it.
Speaker 2: It's really so heartbreaking. And by that I mean both
Speaker 2: the book is heartbreaking and it's heartbreaking that we're reading
Speaker 2: it now without her here, and it is incredibly honest.
Speaker 2: It's raw. She says a number of times in the
Speaker 2: book like look, I know this is really hard to hear.
Speaker 2: Please stay with me, and then at one point she says,
Speaker 2: you probably need a breather. I do too, you know,
Speaker 2: after she's describing these horrific alleged acts of sexual abuse.
Speaker 2: It's so important for us to have that in her voice.
Speaker 2: There are a number of reasons it's important to have
Speaker 2: it in her voice. The first is this kind of
Speaker 2: still very widely held belief that a significant number of
Speaker 2: women lie about right. It alludes to me why so
Speaker 2: many people believe these rape myths at all. However, it's
Speaker 2: much easier to believe those myths when they are a
Speaker 2: headline just you know, Virginia Gfrey accuses Prince Andrew of
Speaker 2: sexual abuse without very much detail. But it is very
Speaker 2: different when we have the whole story in her voice,
Speaker 2: with that detail. And the second thing is that survivor
Speaker 2: testimony in detail. That's really important because those accused of
Speaker 2: these kinds of offenses. They know how important it is
Speaker 2: to hear from survivors. They really really rely on out
Speaker 2: of court settlements because what they get from that is
Speaker 2: they get insurance that the survivor will not be able
Speaker 2: to tell their story. And that's what Prince Andrew got
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, and he and the powers paid a
Speaker 2: lot of money for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. So Virginia
Speaker 1: Defray took Prince Andrew to court a few years ago.
Speaker 1: So after reading her memoir, how should we understand that
Speaker 1: decision to sue? What was it that she was asking
Speaker 1: the court to recognize?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean these passages are really interesting because
Speaker 2: what she got him to do was right, a public
Speaker 2: recognition of the harm that has been caused to her
Speaker 2: by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. Now that is not
Speaker 2: him saying that he did it. You know, his position
Speaker 2: is still that he denies allegations of sexual abuse. But
Speaker 2: that document, along with the settlement, we don't see that
Speaker 2: in the legal world very often, and so to get
Speaker 2: a kind of statement like that was really really important,
Speaker 2: and it seems from the book was really really important
Speaker 2: to her because a lot of people and a lot
Speaker 2: of headlines understood that settlement to be some sort of
Speaker 2: retraction from her. But one thing that we really need
Speaker 2: to take away from this book is that she is
Speaker 2: in no sense retracting any part of this allegation. She
Speaker 2: is saying this happened, and in fact, you know, here
Speaker 2: is everything I remember about.
Speaker 1: It, and Lucia right now in the US Congress is
Speaker 1: going through all of these documents, thousands of them, emails,
Speaker 1: call lists, and they're being ready for public release. So
Speaker 1: should we expect more revelations to come to light about
Speaker 1: Epstein and about other people who were in his orbit.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, we will see more and more and more
Speaker 2: headlines which will represent a build up of evidence about Jeffrey,
Speaker 2: potentially more about Prince Andrew, potentially more about other associates
Speaker 2: as part of this sex trafficking ring. That really will
Speaker 2: change the course of this story. I think those documents
Speaker 2: have existed for a very long time, and you know,
Speaker 2: there is obviously a lot in there that people are
Speaker 2: trying to hide. And so Virginia's memoir says that she
Speaker 2: wanted to name other people, other clients of Epstein's, and
Speaker 2: she wasn't able to because they were too powerful, And
Speaker 2: that exact thing happened to me. You know, I have
Speaker 2: a few names that I wanted to publish in my book,
Speaker 2: and I was told I couldn't. And maybe those names
Speaker 2: are the same as Virginia's, maybe they're not. But what
Speaker 2: it seems like we are finally going to get is
Speaker 2: a lot of different documents that together paint a much
Speaker 2: more accurate picture of how serious this was, how widespread
Speaker 2: this was, and how many victims were involved.
Speaker 1: And then there is the question of whether or not
Speaker 1: this ultimately leads to those victims getting justice because there
Speaker 1: are a lot of victims. There are a lot of women.
Speaker 1: I think the Justice Department says there's more than a thousand.
Speaker 1: So do you think that as this happens, we are
Speaker 1: getting closer to any kind of justice for them?
Speaker 2: I really hope.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's really hard because there's a
Speaker 2: lot of things going on here in terms of justice
Speaker 2: in the criminal sense. The only way for that to
Speaker 2: happen is for the public authorities, the police or the FBI,
Speaker 2: to bring charges. I certainly think there is enough evidence
Speaker 2: to bring charges against people who have not been charged,
Speaker 2: and you know, at the moment, Gilaine Maxwell is in
Speaker 2: prison for sex trafficking to no one. But of course
Speaker 2: we are at a very particular time in US politics.
Speaker 2: We're seeing Trump firing federal employees who are involved in
Speaker 2: Agile Nxwell trial, for example, So politically this government's justice department,
Speaker 2: it's hard to say with any confidence that they would
Speaker 2: have the political will to bring new charges. I mean,
Speaker 2: I really hope I'm wrong about that. There will be
Speaker 2: a point at which, if there is enough evidence out there,
Speaker 2: there will be so much pressure on them that they
Speaker 2: will bring charges. And the end of the caveat is
Speaker 2: that it's a shame that, for example, the FBI is
Speaker 2: the main agency that would be investigating federal elements of
Speaker 2: these crimes. And a lot of the survivors that I
Speaker 2: talked to often are involved in a lawsuit against the
Speaker 2: FBI for not investigating Jeffrey Epstein even though the FBI
Speaker 2: were told that he was doing this in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: So from a survivor's perspective, it's very hard to trust
Speaker 2: the FBI to actually investigate this. But all credit to
Speaker 2: them for taking that huge step of suing the FBI,
Speaker 2: because hopefully that will mean there's now more pressure on
Speaker 2: them to not do the same thing again.
Speaker 1: Well, it's going to be really interesting to see how
Speaker 1: all of this plays out. Lutia, thank you so.
Speaker 3: Much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, the National's Deputy leader, Kevin
Speaker 1: Hogan says the party has major reservations with the federal
Speaker 1: government's overhaul of environment laws. It comes as the Greens
Speaker 1: have doubled down on their criticism of the legislation, saying
Speaker 1: Labour's reforms weaken environmental protections, leaving Labor without an obvious
Speaker 1: partner to pass the laws through the Senate. The Greens
Speaker 1: and environment and business groups have received extracts of the
Speaker 1: new legislation ahead of its introduction into Federal Parliament in
Speaker 1: the upcoming sitting fortnite and US President Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: announced sanctions targeting rushes to largest energy companies in a
Speaker 1: bid to pressure Vladmir Putin to agree to a peace
Speaker 1: still in Ukraine. Trump has also defended his decision not
Speaker 1: to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, stating it would take
Speaker 1: too long to train Ukraine's military in how to use them.
Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening,