Epstein files: Four flats, six victims, UK silence

A new BBC investigation has laid bare the full, disturbing scale of Jeffrey Epstein's presence in the United Kingdom - an operation far more organised and enduring than previously understood. Drawing on emails, bank records and receipts contained within the now-public Epstein files, the investigation reveals that the convicted sex offender maintained at least four rented apartments in one of London's wealthiest neighbourhoods, using them to house women he trafficked and abused over a period spanning years. Crucially, this infrastructure flourished in the shadow of repeated decisions by British law enforcement not to open a formal investigation.

A network hiding in plain sight

The four flats were located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea - among the most expensive and exclusive postcodes in Europe. Far from being ad hoc arrangements, the properties formed what investigators now describe as a logistical backbone to Epstein's UK abuse network. He paid the rent directly, provided monthly allowances to the women living there, and in some cases funded English language courses - financial control used as leverage to maintain power over his victims.

At least six of the women who lived in these flats have since come forward as victims of Epstein's sexual abuse. Many were brought to the United Kingdom from Russia, Eastern Europe and other countries - a pattern consistent with international sex trafficking. Documents in the files show frequent cross-border movement, including dozens of Eurostar journeys between London and Paris: between 2011 and 2019, at least 53 such tickets were purchased for women connected to the network, with trips continuing until just months before Epstein's arrest in July 2019.

Coercion and recruitment

The operation was not simply one of containment. Emails uncovered in the BBC investigation indicate that some of the women housed in the flats were themselves coerced into recruiting others, acting as scouts in London's fashion and modelling worlds to draw new potential victims into Epstein's orbit. This structural detail transforms the picture from one of isolated predation into something resembling a self-sustaining criminal enterprise - one with established housing, an active recruitment mechanism, and a steady flow of victims across international borders.

British authorities: Aware but inactive

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the investigation is what it reveals about the response - or lack thereof - from UK law enforcement. The Metropolitan Police's first opportunity to act came in 2015, when Virginia Giuffre alleged she had been trafficked to London and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew in 2001, when she was 17 years old. (Prince Andrew, now styled as the Duke of York using his birth surname Mountbatten-Windsor, has consistently denied all wrongdoing.) The Met declined to open an investigation, stating it had followed "reasonable lines of inquiry," interviewing Giuffre on multiple occasions and cooperating with US investigators.

That decision, it now emerges, was not the last missed opportunity. By early 2020 - well after Epstein's arrest and months after his death in a New York prison in August 2019 - a second woman had filed a complaint with the Met alleging she had been abused by Epstein in the United Kingdom. The BBC investigation also found documentary evidence suggesting that by 2020, British authorities were already aware that Epstein had rented at least one of the Kensington and Chelsea flats.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) was also involved, though its actions remained largely confined to sharing intelligence rather than initiating domestic proceedings. A 2020 memo sent by the NCA to the FBI highlighted Epstein-related allegations concerning Clare Hazell, the Countess of Iveagh - a British socialite who married into the Guinness family and reportedly flew on Epstein's private jet on more than 30 occasions. The memo noted that Hazell had been accused of sexual abuse, even as the Met maintained there were no allegations against UK-based individuals. Hazell, who died of brain cancer in 2025, was later publicly accused by Virginia Giuffre. The NCA also transmitted financial intelligence about Epstein's UK transactions to the FBI, including records of payments to a Coutts bank account used for the rent of one of the Chelsea flats.

The NCA said it does not routinely comment on the exchange of information with international partners.

London airports as transit points

Beyond the flats themselves, the investigation raises the question of whether London's airports served as transit infrastructure for the trafficking operation. The Met confirmed it is currently "fully engaged" in a National Police Chiefs' Council working group established following the public release of the Epstein files. That group is conducting an assessment of information indicating that London airports may have been used as transit points in the facilitation of sexual exploitation - a finding that would embed the UK's capital even more deeply at the heart of a global trafficking network.

Missed opportunities, according to experts

Former Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner Kevin Hyland was unequivocal in his assessment: there were missed opportunities to investigate Epstein in the UK. He argued that investigators could, and should, have tracked credit card data and IP addresses linked to suspicious group travel bookings - tools routinely available to law enforcement - but failed to do so.

The pattern is consistent with criticism levelled at authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, a 2024 lawsuit filed by 12 alleged victims accused the FBI of repeatedly ignoring credible reports about Epstein's activities from as early as 1996, failing to open a proper investigation until 2006. In the UK, multiple complaints - and substantial financial and logistical intelligence - appear to have produced no equivalent reckoning during Epstein's lifetime.

What comes next

The Met Police has said it is now "fully engaged" in the ongoing national review. The release of the Epstein files has reinvigorated public and political pressure on British institutions to account for their conduct in the years when Epstein operated freely in London. For the six women who have come forward, and the others who may yet do so, the BBC's findings offer something the British legal system has so far not: a documented account of what happened, how it was organised, and who knew what and when.

The question of whether that documentation will finally translate into accountability remains unanswered.