Alan Dershowitz is introduced to comment after the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict. Photo / BBC
Alan Dershowitz is introduced to comment after the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict. Photo / BBC
The United Kingdom's public broadcaster, the BBC, has acknowledged it breached its own editorial standards with a live TV segment that aired after the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict.
Maxwell, a close associate of billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, was yesterday convicted of recruiting and grooming teenage girls to be sexually abused. She was found guilty on five of the six charges brought against her, including sex trafficking of a minor.
That charge alone carries a potential prison sentence of 40 years, and Maxwell, 60, could spend the rest of her life locked away.
In the immediate aftermath of the verdict, BBC World News brought on a guest to offer analysis: lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
Dershowitz was introduced merely as a "constitutional lawyer", with no mention of his own personal connection to Epstein, nor of the allegations that one of Epstein and Maxwell's victims has made against him.
Virginia Giuffre has claimed Epstein and Maxwell directed her to have sex with Dershowitz, Prince Andrew and other high profile men, when she was a teenager.
Dershowitz denies her accusations and says he never met her. He has also filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Netflix for, in his view, portraying him in a "defamatory manner" in its documentary Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Photo / Supplied
Dershowitz previously helped negotiate a 2008 plea deal for Epstein, which saw the financier plead guilty to charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution, register as a sex offender and serve a short jail sentence.
At that stage, Epstein had been accused of abusing dozens of girls. He spent most of the subsequent decade as a free man before taking his own life in prison in 2019.
Andrew also denies Giuffre's claims.
the BBC is interviewing Alan Dershowitz - who’s been accused of sexual misconduct relating to his friendship Jeffrey Epstein - about the Ghislaine verdict, as if he’s an impartial expert? they haven’t even provided any context of the allegations (which he denies) to the audience
After being introduced for his BBC appearance, Dershowitz immediately set about impugning Giuffre's credibility, suggesting the prosecution's decision not to put her on the stand diminished the allegations against both himself and Andrew.
"This was a much-watched trial," the BBC anchor put to him.
"After a long set of deliberations, spanning Christmas, suddenly the jury reached a verdict."
"Well I think the most important thing, particularly for British viewers, is that the government was very careful about who it used as witnesses," Dershowitz said.
"It did not use as a witness the woman who accused Prince Andrew, accused me, accused many other people, because the government didn't believe she was telling the truth.
"So this case does nothing at all to strengthen it in any way, the case against Prince Andrew. Indeed it weakens the case against Prince Andrew considerably because the government was very selective in who it used. It used only witnesses who they believed were credible.
"And they deliberately didn't use the main witness, the woman who started the whole investigation, Virginia Giuffre, because ultimately they didn't believe she was telling the truth. They didn't believe that a jury would believe her, and they were right in doing so."
The anchor did not push back on any of this, or provide the audience with any context regarding Dershowitz's long-running legal battle with Giuffre.
