UK trade minister Peter Kyle says former ambassador Peter Mandelson should apologise to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims after calling their friendship a mistake.
LONDON: UK Business and Trade Minister Peter Kyle has urged former British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson to apologise to the victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mandelson on Sunday called his friendship with Epstein “a terrible mistake” but declined to apologise in his first broadcast interview since being sacked as envoy by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in September.
The former minister was removed from his diplomatic post following fresh revelations about his contact with Epstein after the financier’s conviction for child sex offences.
Mandelson said he had stayed in touch because he mistakenly believed Epstein’s claim of a false conviction, which he now deeply regrets.
“I never saw anything in his life when I was with him, when I was in his homes, that would give me any reason to suspect what this evil monster was doing in preying on these young women,” Mandelson told the BBC.
“I was not culpable. I was not knowledgeable of 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 from the American system.”
Kyle told LBC radio on Monday that anyone connected with Epstein should be “apologising whenever they are asked to do so”.
“Peter Mandelson did express remorse and regret, but I just think every time you’re asked to apologise, just do it,” Kyle said.
Transport Minister Heidi Alexander also criticised Mandelson’s “naivety” for not taking the chance to say sorry.
“I think it would have gone a long way for the women who were subjected to the most appalling treatment at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein for Peter to have apologised and taken that opportunity,” she told the BBC.
