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.”

Carolyn said that she gave Epstein about 100 massages, all of them sexual, all of them ending with him masturbating. 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.” Ghislaine’s father, Robert Maxwell, was a sadist, a war criminal, a monster. His cruelty deformed Ghislaine Maxwell long before she met Jeffrey Epstein. Her one-time lover was convicted for being a paedophile. So Ghislaine’s life has been spent serving not one monster but two. Find out what John Sweeney really thinks about his interview with Aiden Aslin, the British-born former soldier who was captured by Russian forces whilst fighting in Ukraine. Available exclusively on Global Player.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.

Another mystery, this one real-life and rather more sordid: Hunting Ghislaine, Global’s podcast about Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed enabler, Ghislaine Maxwell. Presented and researched by veteran investigative reporter John Sweeney, this is as gripping as all his work. I don’t always agree with Sweeney, but he really is an immense storyteller: his script is fantastic, his interviewing to the point, his presentation fiery and compelling.

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.” John Sweeney: ‘biting, morally informed character assessments’. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer 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 event.” Jon Creamer

When Robert Maxwell drowned, some speculated that he was pushed, others that he killed himself, and yet others that he was simply peeing overboard and lost his balance. “I think he was murdered,” Ghislaine told reporters. That theory was based on the idea that Robert was bumped off by Mossad because he knew too much. 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. 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. After hiding for almost a year, she now finds herself facing multiple charges for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually exploit and abuse under-age women which could lead to her spending the rest of her life in gaol.Robert Maxwell's luxury yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. Multi-millionaire Maxwell probably plunged to his death from the yacht. John Sweeny, what a guy. I wish I had a fraction of his ability to not give a crap! His guests are always fascinating and John gets some great answers out of them

Jeffrey Pagliuca, one of Ghislaine Maxwell’s defence team, arrives at court in Manhattan, 10 December 2021. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/ReutersJust 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… That is, when 14, 15 or 16, they were invited by Maxwell or her assistants to give Epstein a massage, that they didn’t know that it was going to be sexualised, that they were nearly always white, slender, just post-pubescent, free of tattoos, naïve, each and every one more child than woman. Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein.