I never saw young women on Epstein visits, Mandelson tells BBC

Lord Mandelson has said he never saw girls at Jeffrey Epstein's homes, and he has declined to apologize to the victim's for retaining his friendship with the American because he was not

knowledgeable of what he's doing. In his first interview since being barred as the UK ambassador to Epstein over his links to Epson, he told the BBC that he felt

kept separate

from the late financier's personal life becaUSe he was gay. He was fired after emails revealed support for messages sent to Epstein after the American was banned from soliciting sex from a juvenile. The only people he had seen at Epstein's homes were

middle-aged housekeepers," the former ambassador said. If he were complicit or culpable, he would have apologised, according to him, but he denied it was never the case.

In 2019, Epstein, a well-connected financier, died in a New York prison cell, awaiting a child trafficking trial. He had been found guilty of soliciting prostitution from a juvenile, which had been labeled a child criminal.

I want to apologize to Epstein's victims for continuing the friendship after the first conviction,

Asked on BBC's One's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg,

I would like to apologise to those women for a system that refused to hear their voices and did not give them the security they were entitled to.

He was given security but not them.

If I had known, if I was complicit or culpable, of course I would have apologised. However, I was not culpable because I was unaware of what he was doing.

I regret and will regret the fact that powerless women, women who were denied a voice, were not given the rights they were entitled to expect," he said.

In the interview, Lord Mandelson, who served as ambassador for a few months, was asked about US President Donald Trump's continuing remarks about his country needing to own Greenland. Although saying he admired Trump's directness in his political dealings, he did not expect the US president to land on Greenland and take it by force.He's not going to do this,

he said. I'm not sure, but I'd be giving my best judgment as someone who has observed him at several quarters. He's not a fool.

He said the president had a close circle of advisors around him,

advising him that if they interfere, take Greenland, it would be completely counterproductive and could put the president's national interest in jeopardy.

We're going to have to wake up to the fact that the Arctic needs to be secured against China and Russia. And if you ask me who is going to lead the drive to save, we all know that it will be the United States, which we don't know.

Lord Mandelson said he felt kept separate from Epstein's sex life because of his own sexuality when asked about his long friendship with him over the decades.

I'm sure some people would suspect me because I am a gay man. I wasn't up to date with what was going on. I don't really accept that.

I believe the issue is that because I was a gay man in his circle, I was kept separate from what he was doing in the sexual sphere of his life. On one occasion, he spent one or two nights on Epstein's fabled private island, as well as visits to Epstein and New Mexico's New York and New Jersey homes.

The only ones that were there were the housekeepers, never were there any young women or girls, or people that he was preying on or engaging with in the kind of ghastly predatory manner that we later discovered out.

Epstein was never there" on the island, he said.

After emails revealed that he had been in touch with Epstein after his first arrest, the government sacked him as its ambassador to the United States. Lord Mandelson was reported to have told Epstein to fight for early release and, the day before he began his prison term, I think the world of you. He had beeneconomic with the truth

before he was appointed, according to No. 10, and they were unaware of the

depth

of their relationship. Lord Mandelson said on Sunday that the government

knows everythingwhen giving him the job,but not the emails because they came as a surprise to me.

I didn't remember sending them. They no longer existed on my server,

he said. He said he knew why he had been fired because he was fired.

The prime minister found himself in the middle of what must have appeared to him to be some sort of thermonuclear explosion.

I've been there, I know what's going on.I wish I'd had the opportunity to remind him of the details of my marriage, my friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and how I started to write the emails in the first place. I didn't know he did not, I understood why he made the decision, but one thing I'm really positive about is that I'd not want to reopen or relitigate this issue. I'm moving on. Lord Mandelson had at worst, deep naivety in his remarks, according to Labour Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, who was interviewed on the same programme.

It would have been a long way for the women who were exposed to the most painful care at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein for Peter to have apologised and taken the opportunity,

she said.

Clearly there will be a discussion about due diligence before you appoint someone to such a role,

she said, but she acknowledged that the detailed information about their relationship was not available when he was given the job was not yet available.

I wouldn't touch someone that I was working with in that situation with a barge pole,

she said of Epstein's continuing friendship. The emails revealed thedepth and breadthof the marriage, according to Downing Street,materially different

from what they had expected when naming Lord Mandelson, particularly his

suggest

that Jeffrey Epstein's first trial was invalid and should be challenged was new information.

In light of all of Epstein's crimes and aware of the victims of the tragedy, he was dismissed as ambassador with immediate effect," the organization said. Lord Mandelson, the key architect of New Labour, has been in and out of British politics for the past four decades. He served in several ministerial positions from Tony Blair's inauguration to resign from office twice before Labour lost control in 2010.