Compelling testimony of a vulnerable victim

Panorama: The Prince And The Epstein Scandal BBC1, Monday I’m A Celebrity Get me Out Of Here VMT1/UTV, all week The Young Offenders RTÉ2/ BBC1, Monday

WHENEVER there’s a high-profile interview with the victim of alleged sexual abuse – whether the accused is Michael Jackson or Prince Andrew – you always are left with one key question at the end. Was the accuser credible? In the case of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the answer was a resounding yes. Unless she is the greatest actress the world has ever known, there was a profound hurt in her testimony, not even so much at the way she was physically violated, but how the rich and powerful could, as she said, treat her like a toy or a platter of food to be passed around.

She certainly came across much better than Prince Andrew did in his own ill-advised interview, in which he came across as shifty and seemingly unaware of the harm done by Epstein to vulnerable teenage girls.

A victim of abuse at the hands of unnamed others since the age of seven, Virginia was exactly the sort of susceptible teen the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein liked to target. First, she was taught to massage Epstein, she claimed, before progressing to making her submit to what only can be called sexual assaults by his friends, since no one asked for her consent. At 17, she was old enough to give or deny it, but no one cared. She just was there to do what she was told.

Panorama’s Darragh McIntyre (he’s the older brother of fellow investigative reporter Donal) was sensitive to her emotions during the interview, and paused at one point to allow her to wipe her tears away with a tissue, but he wasn’t shy either about challenging what appeared to be a few holes in her testimony regarding places she alleged the assaults took place, and the dates on which they occurred.

I was baffled that some people I spoke to afterwards found this compelling evidence she was lying; I’m pretty certain the mind does everything it can to help us through trauma, and if that means the memory occasionally gets a little hazy, I find that perfectly understandable.

Despite his denial of the allegations, Prince Andrew’s role in public life has ended, as it should, but he still must face proper questioning by the relevant law enforcement agencies in the United States. Epstein may be dead – whether by his own hand, or by someone else’s because he knew too much (and while I’m no believer in conspiracy theories, I happily make an exception on this occasion) – but Ghislaine Maxwell has many questions to answer too.

As for Virginia Giuffre, the last words should be hers, because they were compellingly delivered. ‘He [the prince] knows what happened and I know what happened,’ she said. ‘Only one of us is telling the truth and I know it’s me.’

It says a lot about our world, though, that the 3.4million in the UK who tuned in to watch her were dwarfed by the 7.5million audience for the same night’s episode of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!.

Mind you, the cringeworthy behaviour of campmates James Haskell and Ian Wright had by that stage become something of an obsession. Haskell, in particular, was one of the most annoying contestants ever to appear on the show, a man clearly used to getting his own way and also displaying an almost Victorian chauvinism. It might have been understandable, though still not justifiable, in a man twice his age, but it seemed odd indeed that a 34-year-old would be such a dinosaur. He even confessed that he didn’t tell his now wife Chloe Madeley (daughter of Richard and Judy) he loved her until he saw she was accepted by ‘the boys’. I genuinely thought he was talking about children from a previous relationship but, no, it was about his rugby mates. Says it all, really.

The real revelation this year was Nadine Coyle. I can’t say I’ve ever seen her as herself in the years since her infamous RTÉ Popstars ageconfusion moment but she came across as whip-smart, funny, brave and empathetic. So too did Caitlyn Jenner, whose open attitude to her transition happily embraces her current life and her previous one.

Unusually, I don’t really care who wins tonight. Ever since the Toxic Two left the jungle, the atmosphere has greatly mellowed, leaving only nice people behind. That might not make for great television, because if we’re honest we all like an occasional flare-up, but it certainly seems like a victory for common decency.

It’s a shame the TV moment of the week was so well flagged in trailers but Roy Keane’s appearance in The Young Offenders still made me laugh. He rocked up to Conor, Jock and Máiréad’s ill-fated van and asked for fish and chips. All three told him in the bluntest of Anglo-Saxon where to go.

It was the, literally, salty highlight of what probably was the weakest episode in the 11 episodes to date, which still is a very high batting average. For once, though, I felt that the show’s real strength, its ability to weave genuine emotion into the comedy, was grafted on rather than organic.

I’ve always liked the illusion that despite their fondness for petty crime, Jock and Conor are just directionless teenage boys who have good hearts underneath it all.

This week, I came perilously close to seeing them for what they are, a pair of feckless ne’er-dowells whose crimes, even low-level bike theft, are not victimless.

I don’t want them to turn into the brightest boys on the block and suddenly head off to UCC to do engineering and law, but I’d still like to think they have a better future – though the fact I even care undermines my own argument, and reminds me of why this still is the best comedy on TV right now.

Panorama: The Prince And The Epstein Scandal

Virginia Giuffre gave a compelling interview The Young Offenders

Roy Keane’s appearance still made me laugh I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!

Nadine was whip-smart, funny, brave and emphatic