Maybe I have a slightly ghoulish interest in the abuse and trafficking cases brought against high and mighty individuals Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew but I also feel angry that they entrapped usually young people into their sordid world and generally act as if personal power, fortune and privilege isn't enough for them but that they also have to have other people do their bidding even down to participating in disgusting and depraved sexual acts.
This three-part documentary focused on Ghislaine Maxwell but naturally took in her ill-fated relationships with the two others mentioned above. The programme started by retracing her origins as the daughter of the wealthy press magnate Robert Maxwell, where we learned that as the youngest of his many children, she was his favourite as evidenced not only by the many pictures of them together but also by his naming of his private luxury yacht after her, which turned out to be the one from which he probably committed suicide.
Only in her early twenties at this point, Maxwell reinvented herself by moving to New York and working in magazines through which she began to socialise with the high and mighty there. This is how her path crossed with Epstein and she quickly became his lover and partner. Epstein was a fabulously wealthy investor who hob-nobbed with the rich and famous, including ex-President Clinton, future President Trump and of course most infamously Prince Andrew of the British royal family. He even owned his own private island in the Caribbean which he treated as his own playground, although the games he would play were very dark and very sinister involving as they did the procurement of very young girls allegedly in-gathered for him by Maxwell, to enable Epstein to meet his self-proclaimed target of three orgasms per day. So it was that girls as young as 14 and usually always in their early teens were brought to the island ostensibly to massage Epstein but in reality to be sexually assaulted by him.
Justice finally caught up with Epstein when at the second attempt in 2019 he was arrested and while awaiting trial for his deviancy, committed suicide in his prison cell. But if Maxwell thought it would all go away for her with Epstein's death she was wrong as the same accusers now pointed the finger at her as his procurer and occasional participant in some of the dreadful practices against them. Maxwell's defence was that she didn't know anything about his activities but from the evidence and testimony presented here, it was no surprise to me when in late 2021 in New York she was convicted and sentenced to over 20 years in prison, a decision which she is currently in course of appealing.
With very few exceptions, almost everyone here presented in front of the camera seemed to find it completely plausible that she knew exactly what she was doing in Epstein's service.
Of course some of the big fish appear to have got away as witness Prince Andrew's recent settlement with his main accuser Virginia Giuffre, but for me there is satisfaction in knowing that at least Epstein and Maxwell's huge wealth and power in the end weren't able to protect them from the ends of justice.
This documentary made no secret about which side it took in this matter but even so seemed to me to do a good job in building up the case against this duplicitous and ultimately totally discredited individual. Perhaps if her blood had been blue she too might have found a way out of her predicament but in the end, I was encouraged to see all the victims interviewed here getting some sort of satisfaction and I hope closure from her likely lengthy incarceration in jail.
