Lord Mandelson has said he never saw girls at Jeffrey Epstein’s properties, and declined to apologise to the late paedophile’s victims for maintaining his friendship with the American because he was not “knowledgeable of what he was doing”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg in his first interview since being sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US over his links to Epstein, he told us that he thought he had been “kept separate” from the sexual side of the late financier’s life because he was gay.

He was fired after emails emerged showing supportive messages he had sent to Epstein after the American was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

The former ambassador said the only people he had seen at Epstein’s properties were “middle-aged housekeepers”.
He said he would have apologised were he “in any way complicit or culpable” but stressed that was never the case.

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