Hunting Ghislaine

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Now, though, Sweeney seems professionally rejuvenated. He recently published Murder on the Malta Express: Who Killed Daphne Caruana Galizia? – an investigation into the murder of the Mediterranean island’s leading journalist. He is writing a fifth novel. His fourth, The Useful Idiot, was set in Stalinist Russia and included a diabolical character called Cornelius Aubyn. As the first and last three letters of the name suggest, this was a dig at the former Labour leader. In a sense they were made for each other. He was the powerful male figure, and key to a life of luxury, that she had lost when Robert Maxwell went overboard. She had a Rolodex of connections – not least Prince Andrew, who could provide the shady financier with a veneer of social respectability and cachet. Sweeney comes to a weary conclusion. “Power and money can help blind justice around the world,” he says. “But in America it’s normal.” Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Global Player is Global’s entertainment hub, which allows listeners to enjoy all of Global’s radio brands, award-winning podcasts and expertly curated playlists all together and all for free on mobile via the Global Player app, online and through your smart speaker.

Ingrams said: “I believe that Ghislaine’s behaviour in regard to Epstein and everything is partly due to the fact that she had this very peculiar upbringing with this monster man as her father. People need to connect the Ghislaine story with this nasty man who is her father.” That denial is dark and strange because, if so, it means that all these women who say that Maxwell was a handmaiden to a mega-rich paedophile are deep in a conspiracy of lies, all the darker because they didn’t know one another at the time and, pretty much, they all say the same thing. Sweeney methodically chronicles the steps of grooming; spotting the victim as being vulnerable, unstable, from a broken home; the friendly approach, the offer of a job, advancement or simply ready cash; the seemingly innocent suggestion of giving Epstein a massage; the ensuing abuse and entrapment. Hunting Ghislaine, by the investigative journalist John Sweeney, is based on Sweeney’s popular 2020 podcast of the same name. It’s a story with which we are all familiar – overly familiar, perhaps – but while Sweeney draws copiously on the extensive reporting done by others, his book, carefully researched and written in a breezy journalese, casts new light on the complex character of Ghislaine Maxwell and her fateful relationships with Epstein and her father. Pagliuca had great sport, crushing Carolyn’s spirit so that at one point proceedings had to stop while Carolyn just uttered heart-rending sobs. Pagliuca, with his bouffant grey curly hair a spitting image for another great American, Jerry Springer, read out Carolyn’s surname by mistake. Funnily enough, he’d got previous for this, also reading out the true first name of the first female witness, “Jane”. A famous actor in a long-running Hollywood TV soap opera, Jane had told the court she feared public disgrace if she gave evidence under her own name: “I’ve always just wanted to put this past me. I moved on with my life. I work in the entertainment industry and victim shaming is still very present to this day.”If Maxwell was like that to his staff, how did he treat Ghislaine, the apple of his eye? Monstrously says an old enemy, Richard Ingrams, former editor of Private Eye who was sued so many times by Maxwell that he can’t remember. Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who suffered a tragedy, the death of her father, a war hero, a philanthropist, a good man, in suspicious circumstances. She fled to New York where she made a new life with a brilliant mathematician. Her name is Ghislaine Maxwell and her lover was Jeffrey Epstein. Through Jeffrey, and her family name, Ghislaine became friends with some of the most powerful people on earth, ex-President Bill Clinton and President-to-be Donald Trump and the second son of the Queen of England, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. Just so you know, this is fiction: but Heawood and his compadre Kennedy Fisher are played so brilliantly by Barnaby Kay and Jana Carpenter that they’ve started to feel like real people. I find myself rooting for the cynical, intrepid Fisher in particular, despite this series’ dark questions around who she is and what she’s really been up to. This is a new element, and means that our two heroes are not working together as closely as before; Fisher is in a small coastal town in the US, Heawood in Mosul, though there might be a sinister connection between both places… Carolyn said that she gave Epstein about 100 massages, all of them sexual, all of them ending with him masturbating. That’s probably a fair assessment, except to say there are many greater monsters active out there. Who’s hunting them?

So, from one of her father’s greatest enemies in life, for the monster’s daughter, some measure of pity. Robbie Ashcroft, Managing Partner, Entertainment Development of The Story Lab said: “As soon as The Story Lab heard John Sweeney’s vision for the Hunting Ghislaine podcast we saw its potential to evolve from sound to screen. We’re thrilled to continue on this collaborative journey with our wonderful partners John and Global, and we are delighted to connect with Paula, Eve, Jill and the passionate team at Eleventh Hour Films to develop this story into a television drama.”

His thesis is that Maxwell’s father was a “monster” (he uses the word repeatedly to establish his case, only occasionally swapping over to “ogre”), and so was Epstein, and in her desire to please these two demanding men, she lost sight of all other meaningful considerations – not least the wellbeing of the young women she lured into Epstein’s corrupting company.

Robert Maxwell's luxury yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. Multi-millionaire Maxwell probably plunged to his death from the yacht. Paula Cuddy, Eve Gutierrez and Jill Green will executive produce for EHF alongside Chris Baughen for Global and Robbie Ashcroft for The Story Lab. John Sweeney will act as series consultant and executive producer.But this is no fairy tale. HUNTING GHISLAINE sets out the other side of the story, and it’s one of the darkest you will ever read.