PS: WERE THEY REALLY SEX SLAVES?

ALL the young women connected with Jeffrey Epstein certainly are more sinned against than sinning. However, I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the tag ‘sex slave’ being used to describe their time in his sleazy orbit. The girls appear to have been paid, for a start. Virginia Roberts claims Epstein gave her £10,000 to sleep with Prince Andrew when she was 17. She has never complained about her liberty being curtailed.

Of course, nothing excuses Epstein’s sexually rapacious attitude towards these under-age girls, groomed into becoming his companions when they were young and vulnerable.

However, there are some poor, unfortunate women in this world who really are sex slaves; women and girls who are caged, jailed, trafficked across borders, locked in cellars and raped on a daily basis. Women who are powerless to leave their imprisonment, who have no agency over their fate.

That does not seem to be the case with these educated and, by all accounts, smart girls who entered Epstein’s world of their own free will. They may have been too young to know better, their experiences there may have been wretched. But were they really imprisoned and enslaved against their will on his luxury ranches, beachside properties, yachts and townhouses? Or did he make their time there so lucrative that they decided to stay, instead of being forced to stay? In which case, shouldn’t we be calling them by another name?

Certainly, as time has passed, most of them seem to have struck deals, in one way or another, that have enriched their lives.