Lord Peter Mandelson has finally apologised to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein for ‘believing him over them’ and remaining friends with the convicted paedophile.
The grovelling statement came amid fierce criticism for an interview over the weekend when he refused to apologise for his own actions, and made the extraordinary claim he had been kept in the dark about Epstein’s depravity because he was gay.
Speaking to BBC Newsnight on Monday evening, the Labour peer admitted he had not wanted to be ‘held responsible’ for Epstein’s crimes, of which he was ‘ignorant, not indifferent’.
He said: ‘I was wrong to believe him following his conviction and to continue my association with him afterwards.
‘I apologise unequivocally for doing so to the women and girls who suffered.’
Lord Mandelson was sacked from his post as US ambassador last September after sickening revelations about his relationship with Epstein.
Emails showed the pair had been in contact after the financier’s first conviction in 2008, when he pleaded guilty to soliciting girls as young as 14 for prostitution, with Mandelson firing off messages of support and advice.
In his first TV interview since his dismissal as ambassador, Mandelson told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that he did not apologise for maintaining the friendship, insisting he would have done so if he were ‘in any way complicit or culpable’.
Lord Peter Mandelson has issued a grovelling apology to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein
The former Labour peer said he believed he was ‘kept separate’ from Epstein’s sordid sex life because he is gay, and denied ever seeing young girls at Epstein’s properties.
He extended an apology only for the ‘system that refused to hear their voices’, but not for his own conduct.
One cabinet minister told BBC Newsnight that Mandelson was now ‘persona non grata’, while another minister described his interview as ‘horrendous and toe-curling’.
Labour peer Baroness Kennedy also slammed his initial tack, telling BBC Newsnight: ‘I suspect that almost every woman who listened to it said: “But where is your compassion and empathy for the women who were there?”
‘The tragedy is the women’s tragedy. It’s not Peter Mandelson’s tragedy.’
Despite this, she insisted Mandelson would retain his peerage.
In the face of this growing storm, Mandelson was last night forced to climb down and apologise properly.
He added in his statement: ‘I was never culpable or complicit in his crimes. Like everyone else I learned the actual truth about him after his death.
Mandelson, left, maintained his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, right, even after his first conviction for soliciting girls for prostitution
Lord Mandelson was hand-picked by Sir Kier Starmer to serve as the ambassador to the US
‘But his victims did know what he was doing, their voices were not heard and I am sorry I was amongst those who believed him over them.’
Addressing the correspondence between himself and Epstein that was uncovered last year, Mandelson said on Sunday that the ‘awful toe-curling messages and emails’ were ‘very embarrassing and just make me distraught’.
But he added he was ‘at the edge of this man’s life’.
‘I never saw anything in his life when I was with him, when I was in his homes, that would give me any reason to suspect what this evil monster was doing in preying on these young women,’ he said.
Sir Keir Starmer, who handpicked Lord Mandelson as US ambassador before going on to sack him, said the emails showed ‘the depth and extent’ his relationship with Epstein was ‘materially different from that known at the time of his appointment’.
The Prime Minister had defended Lord Mandelson until the emergence of the emails.
Asked if he deserved to be sacked by Sir Keir, Lord Mandelson said: ‘I understand why I was sacked.’
He added: ‘I understand why he took the decision he did. But one thing I’m very clear about is I’m not going to seek to reopen or relitigate this issue. I’m moving on.’
Emails showed Lord Mandelson told Epstein to ‘fight for early release’ shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
He is also reported to have told Epstein ‘I think the world of you’ the day before the disgraced financier began his jail sentence.
Asked if he had ‘misled’ the Government about his relationship with Epstein prior to being appointed US ambassador, Lord Mandelson said the emergence of emails last year ‘came as a huge surprise and a huge shock’ both to himself and Downing Street.
‘I didn’t remember sending them,’ he said. ‘I still don’t actually recall the circumstances or the thought processes that led me to send them.
‘They no longer existed on my server I had long since disused.
‘So it came as shock to them and it came as a surprise, but I was unable to share emails with them that I didn’t recall and I didn’t possess.’
Asked why he had stuck by Epstein, Lord Mandelson said: ‘It was a most terrible mistake on my part.
‘I believed the story he told in 2008 in his first indictment in Florida, I accepted his story, and I wish I hadn’t.
‘I gave my support to somebody because I believed what he was telling me, and it was misplaced loyalty, but I just have to say this to you: while it’s had the most calamitous consequences for me, the crux of this is not me.
‘The crux of this is not the friendship I had 25 years ago with Jeffrey Epstein. The crux of this is that so many hundreds of young women were completely trapped, powerless in a system that did not listen to what they had to say.’
