Politicians and survivors criticise Epstein file release
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 December 2025
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The US justice department has released a tranche of some of the so-called Epstein files, including photos of the interiors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's homes, his overseas travels and celebrities. Survivors and some US politicians have criticised the release as incomplete, overly-redacted and providing no context of when and where photos were taken. We hear from survivor Marina Lacerda. Also in the programme: US fighter jets attack targets linked to Islamic State in Syria; and a rare sighting of a "pink" platypus in Australia. (Photo: Undated handout photo issued by the US Department of Justice of a photograph appearing to show Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor reclining across the laps of five people. It has been released in the latest tranche of Epstein files. He appears to be smiling with his eyes closed and his head nearly resting on a woman's lap while Ghislaine Maxwell (now a convicted associate of Epstein) stands above peering and smiling in the undated picture. Issue date: Friday December 19, 2025. PA Photo)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.9 | Hello and welcome to News Hour live from the BBC World Service in London. |
| 0:13.6 | I'm Rebecca Kesbby. |
| 0:15.1 | Coming up later in the program today. |
| 0:28.1 | We'll be in Bangladesh where thousands of people have taken to the streets to mourn the death of a young student leader. |
| 0:34.6 | Plus, we'll hear from Palestinians who allege they were physically and sexually abused in Israeli prisons. |
| 0:39.5 | First, though, today, when President Trump was standing for re-election last year, |
| 0:46.1 | his pledge to release the so-called Epstein files was central to his campaign, welcomed by many, |
| 0:52.9 | including Trump critics, and finally, as finally bringing transparency and justice to a case that has disgusted the nation. |
| 0:55.0 | Well, on Friday, the US Department of Justice did release thousands of pages of documents, |
| 1:00.7 | photos and other evidence, but it's still only a small amount of the material seized by the FBI |
| 1:06.8 | when they raided Epstein's properties, and it's all heavily redacted, pages and pages of text, |
| 1:13.4 | blacked out, photos also partly obscured. In a moment, we'll hear from Vicky Ward, an investigative |
| 1:19.2 | journalist who was one of the first to write about accusations of abuse by convicted sex offender |
| 1:24.8 | Jeffrey Epstein. First, though, let's hear from Marina Lasserda. |
| 1:29.5 | She says she was abused by Epstein when she was just 14 years old. |
| 1:34.0 | It was around 2002, and she's been giving her reaction to the release of the files to my colleague Krupa Pardy. |
| 1:41.5 | Did she think this day would ever come? |
| 1:47.2 | Yes, I did think this day would ever come? Yes, I did, I did think this day would ever come. Did I think that it would actually have the full Epstein files? No, I don't think, |
| 1:56.6 | and I don't really think that I always like to be positive about things, but I still feel |
| 2:00.8 | like that we'll never ever really get the truth and the whole truth. |
| 2:04.6 | Journalists, members of the public, they've all been going through this material online. |
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