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The spotlight must now turn to the rich men Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked girls for | Gaby Hinsliff

The woman who procured girls for Jeffrey Epstein and his friends will die in prison – but most of the men involved still walk free

Ghislaine Maxwell is going to jail, and for a very long time indeed. Prince Andrew’s good friend of many decades, and Donald Trump’s regular guest at his Florida retreat, has been convicted of grooming and trafficking girls for sex in a verdict that will reverberate through the highest reaches of the transatlantic establishment. No more invites to Balmoral for the woman who turned vulnerable teenagers into rich men’s sexual playthings, and no more hobnobbing with friendly newspaper editors either. No more private jets or haughty instructions to staff to keep their mouths shut, even as they were picking up discarded vibrators from the bedroom floor. And presumably no more public sympathy of the kind Rachel Johnson expressed recently in the Spectator, fondly recalling Ghislaine’s “naughty eyes” as she flirted with a young Boris Johnson at Oxford, back in the days when none of them had ever heard of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. For all that Maxwell’s lawyers sought to paint her accusers as gold-diggers chasing damages from Epstein’s estate, the lesson many will draw from this case is that the rich are far more often protected by their money and connections than rendered vulnerable by them.

Well, now the world can finally see the seedy billionaire and his predatory girlfriend for what they were. Much like the guilty verdict handed to Harvey Weinstein almost two years ago, the result goes some way to restoring faith in the battered principle that nobody should be above the law. Yet there’s something profoundly unsatisfying about it nonetheless. That the woman who procured girls for Epstein and his wealthy friends will now die in prison, while the men involved remain either free to live their lives or (in Epstein’s case) beyond the reach of any mortal judge, provokes a nagging sense of unfinished business.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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