LONDON — Months after publicly available Jeffrey Epstein court documents were unsealed earlier this year, United Kingdom law enforcement has opened two formal probes into long-unresolved allegations of child sexual abuse tied to the disgraced financier’s network. Surrey Police, the force responsible for the county bordering southwest London, confirmed the new investigations in an official statement issued to reporters Tuesday, outlining the separate geographic and timelines for each claim. The first allegation centers on incidents that are alleged to have occurred across locations in both Surrey and the neighboring county of Berkshire between the middle of the 1990s and the turn of the millennium. The second claim dates back even further, referencing reported abuse that took place in the western part of Surrey during the mid-to-late 1980s. As of the latest update from law enforcement, no suspects have been taken into custody, and no charges have been filed in connection with either investigation. In its public statement, Surrey Police emphasized its commitment to thorough, impartial work on all cases of sexual violence. “We take all reports of sexual offending seriously and will work to identify any reasonable lines of enquiry to verify information or establish corroborating evidence,” the statement read. These new probes follow a public appeal for witnesses that UK police issued in late 2023, shortly after the U.S. Department of Justice released a heavily redacted court document detailing widespread claims of human trafficking and sexual assault. Among the allegations laid out in that unsealed record were claims that abuse occurred between 1994 and 1996 in Virginia Water, a wealthy commuter community located within Surrey. The unsealing of the Epstein files, which contained hundreds of pages of court testimony and witness statements from the late 2010s civil case against the financier, reignited global calls for law enforcement to revisit unresolved claims tied to Epstein’s international connections, more than five years after the disgraced financier died by suicide in a New York jail while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
UK police investigate allegations of historic child sex abuse following Epstein file release
