Epstein’s mate Mandelson says he was separated from paedo’s sexual side because he’s gay

Lord Mandelson remained friends with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein for eight years after he pleaded guilty to child sex offences but refused to apologise to his victims

Peter Mandelson said he never saw sex trafficking victims at Jeffrey Epstein’s houses and believes he was kept “separate” from his “sexual side” – because he was gay.

The ex-US Ambassador – sacked from the role over his pally emails to the dead paedophile – said he “never saw anything that would give me any reason to suspect what this evil monster was doing in preying on these young women.”

In his first interview since his dismissal, the 72-year-old Lord declined to apologise to Epstein’s victims for maintaining his friendship with the the warped financier because he was not “knowledgeable of what he was doing”.

He told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “Because I was a gay man in his circle, I was kept separate from what he was doing in the sexual side of his life.”

Mandelson was sacked by Sir Keir Starmer in September when emails emerged revealing Mandelson remained friends with Epstein until late 2016, eight years after the well-connected pervert had pleaded guilty to child sex offences.

Asked whether he would like to apologise to Epstein’s victims for continuing the friendship after his first conviction, he said would have apologised were he “in any way complicit or culpable” but stressed that was never the case.

He went on: “I want to apologise for a system that refused to hear their voices and did not give them the protection they were entitled to expect.”

“That system gave him protection and not them. If I had known, if I was in any way complicit or culpable, of course I would apologise for it. But I was not culpable, I was not knowledgeable of what he was doing.

“I regret and will regret to my dying day the fact that powerless women were not given the protection they were entitled to expect.”

Asked why he stayed pals with Epstein after his conviction, Mandelson said: “It was a most terrible mistake on my part. I believed the story he told in 2008 in his first indictment in Florida.

“i accepted his story and I wish I hadn’t. I gave my support to somebody because I believed what he was telling me and it was misplaced loyalty.”

He said the leaked emails that cost him his job, “came as a huge surprise and a huge shock” to him, adding they no longer existed on his server, which had long been disused.

He said: “I was unable to share emails with [the government] that I didn’t recall and I didn’t possess.”

The tv appearance was the first time Mandy, a former top aide of Tony Blair, had been seen publicly since he was snapped having a wee against a garden wall in November.

He was urinating in public following a visit to ex-Chancellor George Osborne’s £10million home, three hours after arriving at the former top Tory’s Notting Hill townhouse carrying a bottle of posh Chilean wine.

He was caught short at around 11pm while waiting for an Uber and said at the time: “I can only offer my profuse apologies. I was stood up by two Uber drivers and kept waiting for half an hour and was bursting. There is no disguising my embarrassment.”

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