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Lord Mandelson has said he never saw girls at Jeffrey Epstein’s properties, and declined to apologise to the late paedophile’s victims for maintaining his friendship with the American because he was not “knowledgeable of what he was doing”.

In his first interview since being sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US over his links to Epstein, he told the BBC he thought he had been “kept separate” from the sexual side of the late financier’s life because he was gay.

He was fired after emails emerged showing supportive messages he had sent to Epstein after the American was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

The former ambassador said the only people he had seen at Epstein’s properties were “middle-aged housekeepers”.

He said he would have apologised were he “in any way complicit or culpable” but stressed that was never the case.

Epstein, a well-connected financier, died in a New York prison cell in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He had previously been convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor, for which he was registered as a sex offender.

Asked on BBC’s One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg whether he would like to apologise to Epstein’s victims for continuing the friendship after that first conviction, he said:

“I want to apologise to those women 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.”

He continued: “I regret and will regret to my dying day the fact that powerless women, women who were denied a voice, were not given the protection they were entitled to expect.”

Lord Mandelson, whose tenure as ambassador lasted just a few months, was also asked in the interview about his views on US President Donald Trump’s ongoing comments about his country needing to “own” Greenland.

While saying that he admired Trump’s “directness” in his political dealings, he said he did not believe the US president would “land on Greenland and take it by force”.

He added: “He’s not going to do that. I don’t know, but I’m offering my best judgement as somebody who’s observed him at fairly close quarters. He’s not a fool.”

He said the president had a close circle of advisers around him “reminding him that if he were to intervene, take Greenland, that would be completely counterproductive – and would spell real danger for America’s national interest”.

Asked about his long friendship with Epstein over the decades, Lord Mandelson said he believed he was “kept separate” from Epstein’s sex life because of his own sexuality.

“Possibly some people will think because I am a gay man… I wasn’t attuned to what was going on. I don’t really accept that.

“I think the issue is that 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.”

He referred to one occasion he had spent one or two nights on Epstein’s infamous private island, as well as visits to Epstein’s New York and New Mexico properties.

“The only people that were there were the housekeepers, never were there any young women or girls, or people that he was preying on or engaging with in that sort of ghastly predatory way that we subsequently found out he was doing.”

“Epstein was never there,” he noted of his visits to the island.

The government sacked Lord Mandelson as its ambassador to the US after emails showed he had been in contact with Epstein after his first conviction, offering him support.

Number 10 sources said at the time that he had been “economical with the truth” before he was appointed and they were not aware of the “depth” of their relationship.

On Sunday, Lord Mandelson said the government “knew everything” when giving him the job, “but not the emails because they came as a surprise to me”.

He said he understood why he had been sacked.

“The prime minister found himself in the middle of what must’ve seemed to him to been some kind of thermonuclear explosion – I’ve been there, I know what goes on.

“I wish I’d had the opportunity to remind him of the circumstances of my relationship, my friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and how I came to write the emails in the first place.

“I didn’t, so I understand why he took the decision he did, but one thing I’m very clear about is that I’m not going to seek to reopen or relitigate this issue. I’m moving on.”

In response, Downing Street said the emails showed the “depth and extent” of the relationship was “materially different” to what they had known when appointing Lord Mandelson, particularly his “suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged was new information”.

“In light of that, and mindful of the victims of Epstein’s crimes, he was withdrawn as ambassador with immediate effect.”