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(CNN) – UK Metropolitan Police have confirmed they will “investigate” allegations against Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell highlighted in a new investigation by London-based Channel 4 News.
Channel 4 News said its investigation, released Tuesday, revealed “more than half a dozen claims that young women and girls have been targeted, trafficked, treated or abused in the UK” by Epstein and Maxwell “over a period of more than a decade.”
The report states that the alleged offenses include sexual assault and rape.
Epstein, a multi-millionaire and convicted pedophile who was indicted by U.S. federal prosecutors for sex trafficking, died in a New York City jail cell in 2019 awaiting trial. Forensic scientists said the 66-year-old man’s cause of death was suicide by hanging.
Maxwell, a British socialite and former partner of Epstein, could face trial in New York in the fall. Federal prosecutors say she recruited and trained a 14-year-old girl to engage in sexual acts with Epstein from 2001 to 2004.
She had also previously been charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring and inducing minors to travel to engage in unlawful sexual acts, and transporting minors to engage in criminal sexual activity for allegedly treating and recruiting girls. minor from 1994 to 1997.
She pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and the other charges.
The Channel 4 News report noted that “serious questions” have been raised as to why the Metropolitan Police did not conduct a full criminal investigation into Epstein and Maxwell.
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said in a statement Tuesday that it “still takes allegations of sexual offenses and exploitation seriously.”
“We will always consider any new information and review any information sent to us through Channel 4,” the statement added.
Also in its statement, the MPS acknowledged that the force had received a “non-recent allegation of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation against a US national, Jeffrey Epstein, and a British woman in 2015 regarding events outside the UK.” Kingdom and an allegation of trafficking in central London in March 2001. “
However, according to the MPS, an assessment of the available evidence made it clear that “any investigation into human trafficking would largely focus on activities and relationships outside the UK”.
“The officers therefore concluded that the MPS was not the appropriate authority to conduct investigations in these circumstances and, in November 2016, it was decided that this case would not be the subject of a full criminal investigation. “
CNN has contacted Maxwell’s legal team.
According to Channel 4 News, legal experts who examined the allegations obtained by the British media said that “the allegations provide clear grounds for an investigation and accused the Met Police of failing in their legal obligation to launch an investigation full criminal law “.
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