Staley referred to Epstein as ‘uncle Jeffrey’ in email to daughter, court hears

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Jes Staley despatched an email to his daughter referring to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein as “uncle Jeffrey”, a court heard on Wednesday, as the ex-Barclays boss makes an attempt to problem regulators’ allegations that he performed down his ties to the late financier.

In a tense listening to in London, throughout which Staley accused the Monetary Conduct Authority of an “invasion” of his household’s privateness, the court heard that Epstein had mentored Alexa Staley and allegedly helped her apply to Columbia College, which Staley vigorously denied. 

“I feel there’s an invasion of my household right here and I resent it,” he mentioned, after seeing emails in which he appeared to have shared his daughter’s tutorial scores with Epstein. “This publicity of my daughter is basically essential to you,” Staley added below questioning from Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC for the FCA.

The court heard that Staley forwarded an email he had acquired from Epstein in April 2009 to Alexa, in which the intercourse offender proposed that he introduce her to distinguished people in the science world over lunch. Staley informed his daughter that the email “is from uncle Jeffrey”.

Months earlier Epstein confronted allegations from prosecutors that he paid a number of ladies, a few of them underage, for massages that ended in sexual exercise. Epstein had pleaded responsible in 2008 to soliciting prostitution and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. Staley has acknowledged that he visited Epstein throughout the latter’s work launch from custody.

Staley, 68, was on his third day of testimony in his authorized problem towards the FCA. Staley turned visibly incensed as Mulcahy pressed him on whether or not his daughter had acquired tutorial assist from Epstein, together with work on the famend large-scale physics experiment identified as LIGO.

The FCA doesn’t allege that Staley, who give up Barclays in 2021, was conscious of Epstein’s criminality.

The FCA is searching for to show that Staley’s ties to Epstein went past that of knowledgeable relationship and that Barclays’ characterisation of their relationship as “not shut” in a letter requested by the regulator in August 2019 was deceptive.

Epstein died in a New York jail cell earlier that month after being charged with intercourse trafficking.

Mulcahy had earlier proven Staley an email he despatched to Epstein in March 2011, in which he wrote: “Debbie [Staley’s wife] and I had been speaking tonight about what you’ve got meant to me and to Alexa. You paid a value for what has been accused however we all know what you’ve got carried out for us . . . we depend you as one among our deepest associates and most sincere folks.”

His daughter had attended a celebration hosted by Epstein in 2012 and attended a convention with him in Vancouver at his invitation, the FCA alleged.

Mulcahy additionally referenced a number of emails in which Epstein and Staley referred to one another as household, together with an alternate between Epstein and the UK’s Prince Andrew, in which Epstein wrote: “I do know you had been seeing Jes Staley this morning, he’s like household and could be trusted 100%.” 

The court has beforehand heard throughout the high-profile trial that Staley informed a senior Barclays colleague that he by no means would have launched his household to a paedophile.

This text has been up to date since publication to make clear when the FCA sought data from Barclays