‘I understand and sympathise with the feeling you might have that you already know the Jeffrey Epstein story. But I am not here to tell you a story about Jeffrey Epstein, or even Ghislaine Maxwell. I am here to tell you the stories of ten women, many of whom have never spoken at length before, about the real impact of sexual trauma on their lives.’ In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors and is now serving twenty years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of four girls. Journalist Lucia Osborne-Crowley was one of the only reporters allowed into the courtroom every day. In her meticulous account of this incendiary trial, Osborne-Crowley paints a blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors, no matter the outcome. Written as a gripping true crime drama, The Lasting Harm critically questions our age-old appetite for crime and punishment, reframes trauma and offers a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice.
