Ex-Barclays boss had sex with member of Epstein's staff in New York apartment

The former chief executive of Barclays, Jes Staley, has admitted to having sex with a member of Jeffrey Epstein's staff in an apartment owned by the child sex offender's brother in New York, a court has heard.

- Kalyeena Makortoff

Staley made the admission at the end of a testy day of cross-examination at the upper tribunal, but maintained that his friendship with Epstein was not personal, and had always been based on business.

The former Barclays boss, who resigned in 2021, is trying to overturn the regulator's decision to ban him from taking any senior roles in the UK financial sector for allegedly lying about the depth of his relationship with Epstein. Barclays declared to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in a letter in 2019 that the two men "did not have a close relationship".

The FCA's lawyer, Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC, handed documents to Staley and tribunal judges without presenting them to the public, before asking Staley: "Do you accept that you had sexual intercourse with a woman at Mr Epstein's brother's apartment?" "Yes," Staley said.

The former CEO, who is married and has two daughters, acknowledged he met the woman through Epstein, but while he told the court "she was part of his staff", he claimed Epstein did not know they had had sex.