If Maxwell is guilty, she has to pay. But this is inhumane

LET’S be clear. If Ghislaine Maxwell, whose trial begins this week in America, is guilty, she deserves a long stretch. Sex trafficking of any kind, let alone of minors, is repulsive. If the evidence against her is enough to convince a jury of her guilt, then her victims absolutely deserve justice.

But I must confess that I have some serious misgivings about the process to date. Not least the fact that despite the presumption of innocence being a fundamental part of the law – and a key plank of the UN Declaration of Human Rights – it seems she is being treated as if she’s already been found guilty and is being punished in the most gratuitous of ways.

This much is abundantly clear from today’s MoS exclusive, in which the daughter of disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell offers an insight into her life in New York’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, where she has spent the past 16 months in solitary confinement.

OMATT Han- cock is reportedly in talks for a £100,000 deal to write a memoir of his time in office, detailing his ‘heroic’ hands-on handling of the pandemic. There’s no doubt that ‘hands-on’ and ‘handling’ are two words closely associated with his time in office; whether the rest remains of interest, who can say.

F COURSE, this isn’t the first we’ve heard of her poor treatment. For months, stories have been circulating. But this is the first time we’ve heard from her own lips just how bad conditions behind bars have been for her.

Malnutrition, assault, threats, abuse – and a seemingly unrelenting campaign designed to wear her down mentally and physically. Her eyesight is failing, she is losing her hair and shed a dangerous amount of weight. She has been, to all intents and purposes, treated like a convicted criminal. Indeed, some might argue worse than a convicted criminal – certainly by British standards.

And what’s really extraordinary is that the Americans aren’t denying it. If anything, the presiding judge seems to think this is a perfectly normal way for a civilised country to treat a foreign national who has not, as yet, been found guilty of a single crime. This is not only unconstitutional, it is also illogical. After all, Maxwell is not a live threat to others. Her crimes, if they are proven, are historical. It is not as though, were she detained in a less highsecurity environment, or granted bail, she would cause harm to others.

But I suspect that’s not really why she’s stuck in a 10ft by 12ft prison cell with an open sewer for a toilet and a rat for company. She’s there because of Jeffrey Epstein, and the mess the American authorities made failing to bring this convicted paedophile to justice. She is being made to pay not only for his wickedness, but for the embarrassment of the muppets who allowed him to take his own life – or be murdered – in jail, and thus evade proper justice. Perhaps the US authorities are hoping that, by undermining her health and morale in this way, she will eventually – like so many others in her situation – give in and submit to a plea bargain, preferring to admit culpability without trial in exchange for a reduced sentence. That does not appear to be the case. And it may even be, as her lawyers will argue, that her mistreatment combined with the unrestricted – and hostile – reporting of her case in the US media means that no jury can be convened that is not already prejudiced against her. If that happens, then her alleged victims might never receive proper justice. Which would itself a huge injustice.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve never met the woman, never intend to and have no reason to defend her. If she is guilty she must pay.

But the bottom line is this: until any or all of the charges against her are proven she deserves – like anyone else – to be treated with respect and humanity. That America, the so-called Land of the Free, should have failed so dismally in that respect, is something that should concern us all.