24
NEWS
Almost one in
five primary
schools in Powys
are within three
miles of the
borderevidence from at least four women,
including a former Londoner, who claim
that they were victims of Maxwell from
1994 to 2004.
Here we reveal the key planks of her
probable defence:The “money-grabbers” argument
Maxwell’s lawyers will almost certainly
seek to undermine the credibility of her
accusers by claiming that they are moti-
vated by money.
Pre-trial court filings allege that the
four women have received “millions of
dollars” from a compensation fund set up
for Epstein’s victims after the tycoon
killed himself in prison in 2019 while
awaiting trial.
Documents detailing their claims to
the Epstein Victims’ Compensation
Program, which has paid out a total of
$125 million to about 150 women, have
been subpoenaed in an attempt by
Maxwell’s defence team to “impeach”
the accusers or strike out their testimony.
Maxwell has claimed in the past that
Annie Farmer, the only accuser to waiveher right to anonymity, fabricated her
allegations because of a “desire for cash”.
Farmer, a psychologist who says she
was abused at Epstein’s ranch in New
Mexico when she was 16, previously sued
Maxwell and the late financier’s estate in
civil proceedings.
During that action, one of Maxwell’s
lawyers wrote: “The fact that plaintiff
seeks money from the estate and from Ms
Maxwell in the millions of dollars at the
same time she is a government witness in
an upcoming criminal trial on the same
topic is reason enough to suspect that her
newly asserted memories of abuse with-
out corroboration are not based on the
truth or a desire for ‘justice’, so much as
her desire for cash.”
Farmer, now 42, strongly rejects the
claim.The false memories expert
Professor Elizabeth Loftus, a leading
cognitive psychologist who has previ-
ously testified for Harvey Weinstein and
OJ Simpson, is likely to be a crucial
defence witness. Loftus, 77, will suggestthat Maxwell’s accusers may have been
influenced by media coverage and con-
versations with other victims and their
lawyers into developing “false memo-
ries” of abuse.
Defence filings state: “Her testimony
will concern the workings of human
memory, the effects of suggestion on
memory, the mechanism of creation of
false memories, the characteristics of
false memories, how memory fades and
weakens over time, and how memory
becomes more vulnerable to contamina-
tion.
“She will describe scientific research
showing that false memories can be
described with confidence, detail and
emotion, just like true memories.
“This can occur when people come to
believe in these experiences and are not
deliberately lying.”
Loftus, who has appeared as an expert
witness at more than 300 trials, once told
the Los Angeles Times: “The world is full
of people who support accusers.
“I think people who are accused
deserve some modicum of support asEarly tomorrow Ghislaine Maxwell will
be driven under armed guard past the
Statue of Liberty from her prison cell in
Brooklyn, where she has been held on
remand for more than 500 days, to the
Thurgood Marshall United States Court-
house in Manhattan to fight for her life.
Over the next six weeks in courtroom
318, the British socialite and her lawyers
will attempt to convince a New York jury
that she is innocent of child sex traffick-
ing allegations linked to her former boy-
friend, the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The charges involve the recruitment
and abuse of girls as young as 14 and,
according to her own defence team, sex
acts of a “morally reprehensible, or even
repugnant” nature.
If she is convicted of all six charges,
Maxwell, 59, faces more than 80 years
behind bars and will almost certainly die
in an American jail.
The trial, one of the most eagerly antic-
ipated criminal cases in years, is to hearDipesh Gadher
Home Affairs Correspondentwell.” US prosecutors have sought to have
her testimony thrown out but the trial
judge, Alison Nathan, decided last week
that the jury should hear some aspects of
her evidence.The victims were not all under age
The indictment against Maxwell lists her
accusers as “Minor victims 1, 2, 3 and 4”
and claims that they were under age
when the abuse took place.
The fact that they were children is a
highly emotive aspect of the case.
However, Maxwell’s lawyers will point
out that one of the accusers, “Minor vic-
tim 3”, was 17 at the time she was
allegedly abused by Epstein in London,
and that the age of consent in the UK is 16.
While the age of consent in many
American states is 18, the lawyers are also
likely to highlight the fact that it is 16 in
New Mexico, where Farmer says she was
abused.
An alleged sex act carried out by
Epstein on the teenager in London was
redacted in court papers submitted to the
judge last week by Christian Everdell, oneClaims
rest on
desire
for cash
Charges
brought
to save
face
Money-grabbers and false memories:
the key pillars of Maxwell’s defence
The socialite accused of child sex trafficking will say she is a scapegoat for Epstein at her trial, which starts tomorrow
JANE ROSENBERG/REUTERS; SIPA USA/PA; PATRICK MCMULLAN/GETTY IMAGESGhislaine
Maxwell, a former
girlfriend of
Jeffrey Epstein,
could face more
than 80 years
behind bars if
convicted. She
was in shackles at
pre-trial hearingsbecome a full “Welsh
medium” school.
Dai Holt, 53, who helped to
organise the petition, said:
“The school we cherish
should represent the
community”. His daughter, 8,
is studying in the English
stream and neither Holt nor
his wife speak Welsh.
He added: “More English
people are going to come to
Wales. You cannot stop them
with more draconian policies
on schooling and houses.
Schools run on numbers, not
language. If you do not have
bottoms on seats, you will not
have a school to run. People
have been verbally and even
physically abused over this.”
Karl West, who runs his
own media firm in north
Pembrokeshire, grew up in
Swansea. Both he and his
wife are English speakers but
sent their two children to
Welsh-language schools.
When the children need help
with homework they have to
translate the questions into
English for their parents.
The youngsters attend
Ysgol y Preseli in Crymych,
rated one of Wales’s best
secondary schools, which
teaches all subjects in Welsh.
“My oldest is doing GCSEs
and maths is taught in Welsh.
His mum has a maths degree.
We need the questions
translated for us by our
children but after that it’s
fine. But these are just a few
practical hitches,” said West.Small schools in Wales are
facing closure amid concerns
that families are choosing to
send their children across the
border to England to avoid
learning the Welsh language
or studying for some of the
country’s unique
qualifications.
Hundreds of children are
crossing the border from
Powys to schools in England.
In some cases they could
walk to their local school in
Wales, but their parents
prefer to drive or bus them
several miles to a school in
Shropshire or Herefordshire.
The revival of Welsh has
been spearheaded in Wales’s
schools in recent years with
the devolved government
requiring all schools to teach
the language. While some
schools just teach Welsh
language lessons, about one
in four children studies all or
most subjects in Welsh.
The situation can be a
challenge for English-
speaking parents who have
chosen to send their children
to schools teaching all
subjects in Welsh, as they can
struggle to help with
homework. While many
Welsh parents attended local
schools, few pupils were
taught solely in Welsh until
recently.
Last week, Powys
councillors agreed to widen
its school restructuring
programme to ask families
why they were not choosing
their local schools. Almost
one in five of the county’s
primary schools — around 20
schools — are within three
miles of the border. A string
of village primary schools,
some with fewer than 50
pupils, are facing closure
across Wales. Many blame
falling school rolls on homes
being turned into holiday lets
and retreats.
Rosemarie Harris, leader
of Powys county council, said
that “hundreds of children
are crossing the border” andSian Griffiths
Education Editorthe council wants to
understand why. “We want to
keep our children in Powys,”
she said.
She said that parents might
not want their children to
study for the Welsh
baccalaureate, a qualification
that is unique to Wales and
equivalent to an A grade at A-
level. “We are looking at why
children are crossing the
border. We will probably look
at where schools are using the
Welsh language... There may
be some who do not want to
do the Welsh baccalaureate in
later years,” Harris said. “This
is a historic issue and there
will be many factors.” She did
not think the language was a
main cause.
Harris confirmed that the
county intended to create
more largely Welsh language
schools to meet a new
government target of one
million people speaking
Welsh by 2050. It is thought
that about 30 per cent of the
population — about 880,000
people — can speak Welsh.
In Machynlleth more than
1,200 parents signed a
petition this year protesting
at the scrapping of subjects
being taught in English for
new pupils at Ysgol Bro
Hyddgen, a bilingual school
for five to 18-year-olds.
Pupils who started at the
school this term will be
taught all subjects by Welsh
language teachers and the
school will eventually30%
Estimated proportion of the
Welsh population who
speak the language2050
Date by which government
wants a million people to be
speaking WelshALAMYPupils head for England to
avoid Welsh-only lessons