I can’t claim to have studied the case in any detail. Then again, I don’t think such perusal is needed to reach the conclusion in the title.
Merely on general principle, these days it’s impossible for anyone accused of crimes involving sex (of any variety), rape or race to be judged fairly.
A fair trial is one in which truth comes out – or at least every attempt is made to ensure that it does. Yet when the defendant’s crime touches on the cherished – and typically transient – tropes of modernity, truth retreats, tail between its legs.
Many roads lead to truth, but there is one guaranteed to lead away from it: ideology. And in this age of a total, not to say totalitarian, avalanche of information, no one can possibly remain untouched by ideological afflatus. Not the judge, not the jury – and certainly not ‘public opinion’, a term I’m always compelled to put in quotation marks.
That said, I’m sure Ghislaine is ghastly, her ego and sense of self-worth blown out of all proportion by her birthright to entitlement. On the folk theory about an apple and the tree, any progeny of Robert Maxwell would have to clear an insurmountable barrier of heredity, for he was an inveterate villain.
Moreover, he was a man trained in the dark arts of indoctrination, which he had to practise on his children. Under such circumstances, Ghislaine would have had to be touched by God to escape Robert Maxwell’s malignant influence. Instead she was touched by Jeffrey Epstein.
I’m sure that those who have followed the story more assiduously than I have know all there is to know about the perverse relationship that has proved the undoing of both parties. But even a cursory glance at newspaper articles leaves one in little doubt that Ghislaine indeed procured for Jeffrey.
Some of the girls in her stable were underaged, or close to it. That’s of course naughty, but none of them strikes me as an innocent lamb led to debauching slaughter at the hands of Jeffrey and his friends.
One such victim particularly caught my eye. She was a trainee masseuse who catered to Ghislaine’s need to be kneaded. Impressed with the service she had received, Ghislaine then invited the girl for a weekend at one of Jeffrey’s love nests.
There a tragedy occurred: Jeffrey raped the girl. Rape is a crime, but these days it’s not like any old crime, is it? Utter the word, and it instantly acts as a magnet attracting ideological shibboleths lodged in people’s minds.
Women have been house-trained to believe that rape is the worst possible thing that can happen to them. Worse than a beating, mutilation, even death.
No doubt our masseuse grew up with that indisputable knowledge. She fell victim to a crime than which nothing worse exists. So what did she do?
Did she call the police? No. Did she complain to her family and friends? No. Did she at least escape from that den of iniquity, taking a vow to give it a berth at least a mile wide in perpetuity? No.
Instead she continued to visit the house on multiple occasions for four (!) years, getting raped each time. Queried by the perplexed defence, she explained that the memory of her ordeal was so awful that she blanked it out.
Oh well, that happens. My doctor friends confirm that a deep psychological trauma can produce amnesia. As a credulous man, I therefore accept that she had forgotten the first rape when she paid Jeffrey a second visit. But what about all subsequent rapes, spaced out at regular intervals over four years? Did she push the amnesia button each time?
I don’t believe that, you don’t believe it, no sensible person will believe it. But it’s not sensible people who sit on modern juries but automata programmed by ideological agitprop. They are predisposed to believe any nonsense once they’ve heard one of the key words: rape, racism, hate, homophobia, transphobia.
These words are magic wands. When waved, they sweep away common sense or indeed any understanding of what constitutes reasonable doubt. At best, they create a slight bias. At worst, or perhaps most normal, they doom the defendant.
Once again, I’m not trying to vindicate Ghislaine. I really don’t care about her, although it takes a madman to accept that her crimes, such as they are, merit the prison terms bandied about. Sixty years, in effect meaning she’d die in prison? Even many killers don’t get that.
Just put manslaughter on one side of the scales and inviting girls for a romp or two on the other. What’s that doing to the balance?
I repeat: I don’t care about Ghislaine. But I do care about justice, for without it the West will stay Western only in the purely geographic sense. It’s not democracy but justice that is the salient, formative aspect of our civilisation.
When justice isn’t done, especially when it isn’t done for ideological reasons, we all lose, not just the defendant. That’s why I feel some sympathy for Ghislaine, something I never thought I’d ever feel for a Maxwell.
As usual, Mr Boot, you have reason — at least to some extent — on your side. But I would say that your barbs and the whole article are wrongly aimed. The bigger error lies in the fact of the prosecution. That it is to any extent based on the sort of errors that offend you represents a downfall of American Justice. Could it also happen here? I fear it might. But I should really reserve my opinion because my knowledge is so partial. Note that the jury did not convict on many other charges, and of these I know nothing.
Thank you Mr Boot for this article. While Epstein was a sleazy and shady creature, and Maxwell his partner in crime, the witch hunt is way out of proportion and devoid of context. I had the same questions ; how does a seventeen year old girl, moving with the jet set, with parents never contacting authorities, constitute an innocent victim? Unless evidence is obtained that they were running a pedophile ring, and names are named (Clinton, anyone?) I put this in the “lifestyles of the rich and famous” file. It also seems that Prince Andrew will be the sacrificial lamb in a twofer – rich and royal, further eroding the monarchy, while the white whale – slick Willy again, 26 times a passenger on the Lolita express to Epstein’s island, will slither again out of trouble. Maxwell’s family history would make a compelling read.