last week, leading to a number of postponements. fa cup third and fourth round replays have, however, been scrapped. the jury in the trial of ghislaine maxwell have begun their deliberations in herfederal sex trafficking trial. in the closing arguments, prosecutors called her a sophisticated predator. ms maxwell has denied grooming underage girls for abuse by the late paedophile jeffrey epstein between 1994 and 200a. barbara plett usher is following developments. they recapped their argument, i suppose, that ghislaine maxwell was absolutely crucial for this operation, that her demeanour, as you mentioned, she was age appropriate, smiling, posh, made the girls comfortable, and so she provided a cover to what the prosecution called the creepy behaviour of mr epstein. he never could have done it without her.
and the defence said she did not know that much because her partner, her long time partner, kept secrets from her, and now that he has died, he committed suicide, the prosecution is going after her as a sort of substitute. they re scapegoating her because somebody needs to pay for his crimes. they also argue that the witnesses are not credible. and this is the other core issue, whether the four women are telling the truth. the defence says no, they re not. they re mis remembering, they re inserting ghislaine maxwell into their memories now because they have the prospect of a payout from a compensation fund, and the details are, you know, not consistent. and again, the prosecution has come back and said, well, if they are mis remembering, they re all mis remembering the same thing, and actually money isn t an issue because that payout was for civil suits, and that s done. there s no money involved in what happens in this trial. so those are the two issues how credible the jurors see
you re watching newsday on the bbc. and they talked about the fact, or they said she had a playbook of how to lure these girls in, getting to know them, offering them gifts, spending time with them, making them feel comfortable, and ultimately introducing sexual contact with mr epstein in a. ..as if it was just normal behaviour, and that is what the prosecution argued, her grooming them for him. and they also said that she had been paid by him $30 million, over the period that this trial is looking at, something that one lawyer said, that s $30 million of we did this together, we did this crime together money. so those are the arguments they made ghislaine maxwell knowing what she was doing and being very involved in this operation of mr epstein s sex crimes. that s one of the core issues the jurors will have to decide, how much miss maxwell actually knew?
of independent states. | day broke slowly over lockerbie, over the cockpit of pan am s maid of the seas, nosedown in the soft earth. you could see what happens when a plane eight storeys high, a football pitch wide falls from 30,000 feet. this is bbc world news. the latest headlines: the omicron variant sweeps across the united states with lightning speed, already accounting for three quarters of new infections in the country. the british prime minister says no new covid restrictions for now, but he doesn t rule out bringing them in if needed. the jury in the trail of ghislaine maxwell have begun their deliberations in herfederal sex trafficking trial. in the closing arguments, prosecutors called her a sophisticated predator. ms maxwell has denied grooming underage girls for abuse
thejury in the trail of ghislaine maxwell have begun their deliberations in herfederal sex trafficking trial. in the closing arguments, prosecutors called her a sophisticated predator. ms maxwell has denied grooming underage girls for abuse by the late paedophile jeffrey epstein between 1994 and 2004. barbara plett usher is following developments. jurors have to decide which version of events to believe. the prosecution has does argued that ghislaine maxwell was crucial to jeffrey epstein s operation. she made the teenagers feel comfortable, she was partial, smiling, a coverfor mr epstein. she knew exactly what she was doing after she sent them into a massage room with them. the defence sets is that no she didn t know because mr epstein kept secret from her and she is being punished for his crimes,