Hunting Ghislaine with John Sweeney sets out to tell the strange story of Maxwell and her role in the Epstein scandal. John Sweeney said: “No old school Fleet Street reporter like me who knew what a monster Robert Maxwell was cannot feel some pity for Ghislaine Maxwell on the day he fell off his yacht. But then Ghislaine fled to New York to serve a second monster. This is a dark fairy story of our times, about how power and money and connections can, for a time, blind justice. But not forever.” Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who suffered a tragedy, the death of her father, a war hero, a philanthropist, a good man, in suspicious circumstances. She fled to New York where she made a new life with a brilliant mathematician. Her name is Ghislaine Maxwell and her lover was Jeffrey Epstein. Through Jeffrey, and her family name, Ghislaine became friends with some of the most powerful people on earth, ex-President Bill Clinton and President-to-be Donald Trump and the second son of the Queen of England, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.

Shawn said of Carolyn, one of three girlfriends he says he pimped out to Maxwell and Epstein: “She was a child”, one who, “only had two jobs ever. She worked at Arby’s [a US fast food combine] and she worked for Jeffrey” [Epstein]. Carolyn’s grandfather raped her when she was four years old. Ten years later, she said she was sexually abused by Epstein and Maxwell. The life of Ghislaine Maxwell is a dark fairy story, one that plays out in reverse, of how a clever and beautiful woman ends up serving a monster while too many of her powerful friends look away. It’s a mirror, that shows poor and vulnerable victims to be heroic truth-tellers and some of the biggest movers and hitters on earth to be corrupt or at best, complacent, while evil stared them in the face.

In LBC’s new podcast Hunting Ghislaine, investigative reporter John Sweeney (Panorama, Newsnight, The Observer) sets out to tell the strange story of Ghislaine Maxwell. For me, it is the little details that are most telling. Epstein, we learn, decorated the entrance hall of his New York townhouse with rows of individually framed prosthetic eyeballs. We hear a recording of a prosecutor asking Epstein if it’s true he has an egg-shaped penis, followed by the financier ripping off his mic and storming out of the deposition. Robbie Ashcroft, Managing Partner, Entertainment Development of The Story Lab said: “As soon as The Story Lab heard John Sweeney’s vision for the Hunting Ghislaine podcast we saw its potential to evolve from sound to screen. We’re thrilled to continue on this collaborative journey with our wonderful partners John and Global, and we are delighted to connect with Paula, Eve, Jill and the passionate team at Eleventh Hour Films to develop this story into a television drama.” Ingrams said: “I believe that Ghislaine’s behaviour in regard to Epstein and everything is partly due to the fact that she had this very peculiar upbringing with this monster man as her father. People need to connect the Ghislaine story with this nasty man who is her father.”

Sweeney explores the theories about Epstein having laundered Robert Maxwell’s ill-gotten funds, without ever getting to the bottom of it. But it seems clear that Ghislaine knew Epstein, or of him, before she flew to New York in the wake of her father’s death. She became Epstein’s lover, factotum and the manager of his various homes, although they never cohabited; he had his mansion, and she had the mansion he bought for her.

A New Weekly Podcast On The Trial Of Ghislaine Maxwell Hosted By Investigative Reporter John Sweeney Available Every Friday Exclusively On Global Player Co-commissioned by Global and The Story Lab, part of dentsu creative Others, too, spent a lot of time around Epstein and Maxwell without ever twigging that something dark was happening. At the top of that list would be former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. They may be lots of things but no-one calls them naïve. One female acquaintance recalls a party at Robert Maxwell’s posh “council house”, Headington Hall (rented from the local authority), where Ghislaine organised a game of “guess whose”, in which the men would be blindfolded and the women removed their bras to be fondled and groped. Ghislaine, she says, saw “sex as simply a currency”. Another puts it more bluntly, saying “she was obsessed”. In a sense they were made for each other. He was the powerful male figure, and key to a life of luxury, that she had lost when Robert Maxwell went overboard. She had a Rolodex of connections – not least Prince Andrew, who could provide the shady financier with a veneer of social respectability and cachet.

Sweeney comes to a weary conclusion. “Power and money can help blind justice around the world,” he says. “But in America it’s normal.” Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Why so much swearing? “Swearing is very much part of me and the mood of the podcast. I want this to be like having a pint with someone in the know.” He thinks his rough-and-ready persona is refreshing. “The public like my stuff. I have that attitude of not being cowed.” Indeed, Sweeney is probably best known for screaming at a Scientology spokesman during a 2007 Panorama. The enormous cowpat has had the last laugh: Sweeney is very proud of Hunting Ghislaine. “The journalism is solid. We set out points of view and investigate them and get to a conclusion.” Sweeney theorises that, like a cult victim, just as Ghislaine could never bring herself to believe her father was the monster he palpably was, so she “blinded” herself to Epstein’s depravity, even as she became a willing accomplice to it. A former acquaintance sees it differently, observing that Ghislaine would not be the first woman who “possesses a sexual pecadillo of sharing women with her boyfriend. Underlying all of this was her libertarian sexual appetite.”

Just so you know, this is fiction: but Heawood and his compadre Kennedy Fisher are played so brilliantly by Barnaby Kay and Jana Carpenter that they’ve started to feel like real people. I find myself rooting for the cynical, intrepid Fisher in particular, despite this series’ dark questions around who she is and what she’s really been up to. This is a new element, and means that our two heroes are not working together as closely as before; Fisher is in a small coastal town in the US, Heawood in Mosul, though there might be a sinister connection between both places… Pagliuca had great sport, crushing Carolyn’s spirit so that at one point proceedings had to stop while Carolyn just uttered heart-rending sobs. Pagliuca, with his bouffant grey curly hair a spitting image for another great American, Jerry Springer, read out Carolyn’s surname by mistake. Funnily enough, he’d got previous for this, also reading out the true first name of the first female witness, “Jane”. A famous actor in a long-running Hollywood TV soap opera, Jane had told the court she feared public disgrace if she gave evidence under her own name: “I’ve always just wanted to put this past me. I moved on with my life. I work in the entertainment industry and victim shaming is still very present to this day.” That’s probably a fair assessment, except to say there are many greater monsters active out there. Who’s hunting them?

Jeffrey Pagliuca, one of Ghislaine Maxwell’s defence team, arrives at court in Manhattan, 10 December 2021. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters In New York, under Epstein’s sway, she would go on hunting expeditions for adolescent girls, ostensibly to audition them as models. “I’ve got to get the nubiles,” she told one of Epstein’s employees. A number of girls subsequently turned up at his house wearing school uniforms and braces on their teeth. Launched in November 2020, written and presented by award-winning investigative journalist and author John Sweeney ( BBC Panorama, The Observer), the six-part podcast co-commissioned by Global and The Story Lab, part of dentsu, tells the story of Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced billionaire media tycoon Robert Maxwell and former partner of notorious convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Alongside a host of experts and fellow journalists, Sweeney delves into Ghislaine’s past and her role in the Epstein scandal. Only she can answer how Epstein used his fabulous fortune to blind the eyes of American justice.Chris Baughen, Managing Editor for Global Player said: “As her story continues to unfold almost daily, John Sweeney’s brilliant dissection of Ghislaine Maxwell’s life so far has gripped listeners. As the podcast industry continues to thrive and experience incredible growth, it’s fantastic to see a Global original podcast adapted into visual content.” Last week’s brilliant opening episode (of six), which looked at Robert Maxwell’s relationship with his youngest daughter, painted a swift and devastating portrait of the revolting media tycoon, and expressed some sympathy for Ghislaine. “I feel sorry for her up to the moment her father dies,” said Sweeney. “Because he has formed and deformed her.” I feel twice-sorry for Ghislaine Maxwell: first, because her father Robert was a monster; second, because the conditions in the jail in which she is being held on remand are grim beyond belief. But watching how her defence lawyers earn their big money, how they use their wits to trash sad and broken women, my pity for Ghislaine Maxwell shrivels with every passing day.