Mandelson refuses apology for friendship with Epstein

Peter Mandelson has refused to apologise to victims of Jeffrey Epstein for his friendship with the convicted paedophile and financier.

- DAVID MADDOX

The former US ambassador and cabinet minister had described Epstein as his “best pal” in what he admitted were “toe-curling” emails, but claimed that he was “on the fringes” of the financier’s life.

Speaking in his first interview since getting sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the Labour Party grandee would only apologise for “a system” that let down the victims of Epstein.

He said: “I want to apologise to those women for a system that refused to hear their voices and did not give them the protection they were entitled to expect.”

Pressed on whether he would apologise for his friendship with Epstein after his conviction, Lord Mandelson said: “If I had known, if I was in any way complicit or culpable, of course I would apologise... but I was not culpable, I was not knowledgeable for what he was doing, and I regret, and will regret to my dying day, the fact that powerless women were not given the protection they were entitled to expect.”

He described his relationship with Epstein as “a terrible mistake”, which “I will regret until my dying day”. He went on: “I believed his story and that of his lawyer that he had been falsely criminalised in his contact with these young women. Now I wish I had not believed that story.”