Ghislaine Maxwell

Do you think that the legal system provides justice for those who have experienced sexual abuse. Mostly it doesnt and the victims have to go into all the details then too. Victims of abuse and sexual assault behave in a range of ways to try to deal with their trauma. Whether you approve of those methods is I hope not important to them.

I would not have thought reliving every detail of traumatic events alleged to have occurred many years ago and being cross examined by at least one top lawyer determined to prove you are a gold-digging liar, knowing everything will be reported in great detail round the world, indeed probably televised, for money rather to have an alleged offender imprisoned, was a particularly good way for anyone to deal with what they allege happened to them.

Well, we will have to agree to differ.

Yes but let’s not fall out!?

No, let's not.

I know lots of people dont understand that people react to events in a different way to the way they themselves might react. It's something that us quite a problem within society at the moment.

I know posts meander but it’s odd that a post expressing concern about the circumstances the alleged perpetrator is serious offences in experiencing in prison has become an opportunity to accuse only one of the alleged victims of gold digging.
Many alleged victims are encouraged to cooperate with prosecutions in order to help others. To publicise how child sexual exploitation operates in order to use their devastating abuse experience to inform others
VG is clearly not a ‘proper victim’. She’s surviving, is married, has children. This is somehow distorted to present either a good digging liar, or someone not negatively affected. A bit like the persistent questions about why she’s smiling, why she kept ‘that photograph’. Victim blaming

You know the woman on whom the attention is being focused is one of hundreds of children and young women who suffered severe abuse by rich and powerful men. From the two Farmer sisters identified by Vanity Fair in the 80s right through to the day Epstein was finally arrested.

They all react to this abuse in very different ways. Some are no doubt in complete denial, others remain fearful of the consequences of speaking out against the abusers, others are fearful that their families will find out, others face it head on, and others sing from the roof tops , and all get on with their lives as best they can.

None of us can possibly know the pain and horror they experienced.

But for me Giuffre represents the hundreds of children now young women who have not come forward.

Her story will be told in court and all power to her elbow. I hope as a result not a single abuser will able to sleep soundly in their beds.

The ME Too undoubtedly helped to give a voice to these poor women. Long May it last. We know that Weinstein was a frequent guest of Epstein.

You have a vivid imagination Iam64

Sorry, Germanshepherdsmum but that must take the biscuit as the daftest post on this thread (and perhaps on Gransnet at the moment!).
Not that I want to fall out over it, but it needed saying.

Er - vivid imagination to think I considered GM a victim. I neither said nor implied that and didn’t even mention her. Let me make it very clear that I do not consider her to be a victim and never have.

I wasn’t referring to the parents reporting Epstein I meant how was it that children were able to leave their home and fly out of the country how were they travelling around the country or to airports I am truly puzzled by this

They weren't children.
They were young women.

Indeed they were but people persist in saying they were children for the emotive value of the word. They were young people underage for sex under the law of their country at the time, higher than the age of consent here. If any of them had been called a child at the time I can’t imagine they would have accepted such a description, but it’s very convenient to use it now. And before anyone offers me a lecture about the legal meaning of a child for the purposes of sexual offences under English law, I don’t need it thanks - and when people refer to VG as a child they’re not speaking legalese.

Keeper1

I wasn’t referring to the parents reporting Epstein I meant how was it that children were able to leave their home and fly out of the country how were they travelling around the country or to airports I am truly puzzled by this

They were in most cases children.

What you must understand is that the children they preyed on were taken very largely from abusive or neglected young lives. So you have children who perhaps lived in single parent families whose parent was alcoholic or on drugs etc., or indeed abusive. Even where parents reported their child missing, police were in Epstein’s pockets so nothing was done.But in any case the children were usually picked up outside of school, taken to the mansion to perform foul sexual acts and then dropped back.

Those taken to the BVI for a period of time or to Epstein’s other residences like New York or New Mexico ,were clearly carefully picked, so that they would not be missed.

Epstein’s employees of course were witness to much of this and Giuffre has her story backed by one employer who saw Windsor carrying out a form of sexual foreplay on her on Epstein’s island. She was only 16 at the time. Her background was one of severe abuse and neglect which is why she was considered low risk as far as Epstein and Maxwell were concerned.

Germanshepherdsmum

Indeed they were but people persist in saying they were children for the emotive value of the word. They were young people underage for sex under the law of their country at the time, higher than the age of consent here. If any of them had been called a child at the time I can’t imagine they would have accepted such a description, but it’s very convenient to use it now. And before anyone offers me a lecture about the legal meaning of a child for the purposes of sexual offences under English law, I don’t need it thanks - and when people refer to VG as a child they’re not speaking legalese.

The youngest recorded is 12 but the average was 14. That is a child in my book.

I am unclear why U.K. law is being quoted here.

It has zero to do with the case

Indeed they were but people persist in saying they were children for the emotive value of the word.

People persist in saying they were children because that is what they were at the time they were trafficked and abused.
Some may have been older at the time Epstein was caught but had been caught in his web for years.

wwm I was pre-empting someone telling me what a ‘child’ is here, but actually it is relevant in the case of what is alleged to have happened in London when she was 17, over the age of consent here but not in the US.

I'd like to know what the legal position is in either country for someone who was trafficked under the age of consent, remains trapped because passport etc has been taken away, taken to another country to be provided for sex for old, wealthy men where her age is in fact legal for consensual sex.

And what happened in the BVI?

The point is Windsor will be tried according to USA law, most of the abuse was carried out in the USA.

You are jumping to conclusions if you think that the only time Windsor abused her was in London. There are witnesses.

Employees watched as abuse was carried out, must be good, decent , honest people

Anniebach

Employees watched as abuse was carried out, must be good, decent , honest people

And your remark is relevant because?

How do you know that it was not reported to the police?

In fact it was but guess what…….

I presume that their employees weren't taken on because of their high moral standards.

Anniebach

Employees watched as abuse was carried out, must be good, decent , honest people

Paid well? Threatened?
Or waiting their turn?

I think there must be cases of Stockholm Syndrome amongst those children who were abused and amongst those women who helped him. It was disgraceful that these other women were given immunity from prosecution.

“^There can be a good captor or a bad captor and when a good one gives you a sense of hope, you try to attach yourself to that and detach yourself from the bad. You wind up on your toes to see the world through their eyes because of this attachment.^”

— Alan Manevitz, MD, Manhattan-based family psychiatrist
Manevitz did not speculate as to what may have motivated these women to be complicit in Epstein’s sex trafficking ring but said that many people, if they feel trapped or forced to stay in line by a controlling figure in their lives, comply as a way to cope with a dire situation thrust upon them.

MissAdventure

I presume that their employees weren't taken on because of their high moral standards.

No that doesn’t seem to be the case. First Epstein was very good at concealing much of what went on, and second the police seemed to be in his pocket. BVI owned by Epstein was a law unto itself.