All language subtitles for House.of.Maxwell.S01E02.1080p.WEB.h265-OPUS_track3_[eng]

♪♪

♪♪

-Now, the contents of
Robert Maxwell's home

near Oxford were auctioned today
at Sotheby's.

Everything from furniture
to family photographs

came under the hammer.

One bidder paid nearly £1,000

for the nameplate that sat
on Mr. Maxwell's desk.

-The entire contents
of Headington Hill Hall,

Mr. Maxwell's country
home near Oxford,

were today knocked down
to the public.

-£800. Yours, sir, thank you.

-600 lots took
the whole day to sell,

including everything
from barbecue forks

to antique paintings.

This one, a view of Jerusalem

from where Maxwell is buried,
went for £54,000.

-The place was
absolutely packed.

There were no seats available.

People were standing
around the back.

Basically, they all wanted
the Maxwell memorabilia.

You know, he's a notorious man,

and by then,
everyone knew what had happened.

And then I came
across this lamp.

But what happened, of course,
when I lifted that,

I saw that,

and realised that they
were two microphones.

He was recording everything
that was said about him.

♪♪

[ Static, phone line beeping ]

♪♪

-This was actually
in his own family home.

So he wanted to know exactly
what his sons thought of him,

his wife thought of him.

And it tells you
the true story of the man.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-The sons of the newspaper
tycoon Robert Maxwell

confirmed just an hour ago
that their father is dead.

-It's a particularly sad moment

because this paper
has lost its publisher

and its chairman and its
saviour.

-Love him or hate him,

he touched the lives of many
thousands of people,

many millions of people.

And we are determined
to continue in his tradition.

-After disappearing
off his yacht,

the Lady Ghislaine,
Robert Maxwell's body

is recovered from the sea
off the coast of Tenerife.

His family and inner circle
gather on the island.

-I was in Tenerife
to help the family,

and a couple of journalists
appeared on that cay side.

And then Ghislaine Maxwell
comes up.

She's wearing a tartan suit

with a long-ish jacket
and a short skirt,

and she is really distressed.

She looks very young
and very vulnerable.

♪♪

Then her mum comes through
and says,

"What are you going to do
about the press out there?"

I said, "Well, Mrs. Maxwell,

I don't know how you feel
about it,

but it would make things easier
if you spoke to them."

♪♪

[ Siren wailing in distance ]

And she said, "I think Ghislaine
should do that."

So Ghislaine comes through,
and she's in tears.

She's weak and heartbreaking.

Nothing bad had ever happened
to her in her life before.

Betty puts to her that she
should speak to the press.

And she just sits there
very quietly

and she said, you know,
"What will I say?"

And it was,
"We can get something done.

We can write you a short speech,

we can rehearse you,"
and we did

and we made amendments
and so on, and...

...she burst into tears almost
every time she spoke through it.

And terrible tears.

Eventually,
after going washing her face

and getting herself tidied up,
she said, "I'll do it now."

[ Camera shutters clicking ]

-I want to take this opportunity

to thank
all the many hundreds of people

who have sent messages
of support to us

at this very, very sad time.

I want also to thank the press

for their courtesy
and consideration

to my mother and to us

at this time,

which we appreciate very much.

Gracias a todos,
and thank you all very much.

♪♪

♪♪

-It was a cold, windy day
on the Mount of Olives.

Robert Maxwell was buried here
according to his wish.

Tears from Mr. Maxwell's sons,
his wife, and his daughters.

From Mr. Maxwell's
eldest son, Philip,

a moving tribute.

-Dear Dad...

soldier...

...publisher and patriot,

warrior and globetrotter,

father of nine children
and grandfather of eight,

we salute you.

-After an autopsy, Maxwell's
body is buried quickly,

in line with Jewish tradition.

[ Telephone rings ]

-Across his global media empire,

fear and confusion is spreading
through his senior executives.

-And it's being
secretly recorded

on his elaborate bugging system.

-These calls have been re-voiced
to protect identities.

♪♪

-Do you think it's unlikely,

inconceivable that Mr. Maxwell
could have committed suicide?

-I cannot imagine any situation
that would cause Bob Maxwell

to take his own life.

-The thing he most hated was
being bored and left alone.

So the notion of going on
the boat on his own

seemed to me so alien,
I thought, "Hmm,

I think he probably did go
with the intention

of killing himself."

♪♪

-We hear now that
he probably died of

a heart attack before
he fell in the water.

But nonetheless,
the question remains,

how did you fall off the boat?
-You can inject someone

to pretend or make it look like
someone's had a heart attack.

And there's going to be
a lot of speculation about that.

♪♪

-Will he ask
the Prime Minister,

as head of the Security
and Intelligence Services,

to order an immediate enquiry
into the alleged relationship

between the Israeli intelligence
service and Robert Maxwell?

-It was flying around
it could be Mossad,

but, you know,
it could have easily been anyone

that he had defaulted
on payment on

or maybe was even putting
pressure on to give him money.

It could have been anyone.

♪♪

[ Telephone rings ]

-But as the outside world

speculates about
Maxwell's death,

inside his empire,
there's another mystery.

-Huge problems have been
discovered

with the company's finances.

-The whole empire
could be facing collapse.

And one young reporter
is about to break the story.

-I'm joined by Bronwen Maddox,
who's a former media analyst

and is now a journalist
on the Financial Times.

How much do we really know

about the state
of the Maxwell financial empire?

-I'd always wanted to be
a journalist.

I got sidetracked into the city

because it was
a very lively thing to do

when I was leaving university,

and it came with a lot
of adventures,

actually, more than I would have
got in journalism,

I think, starting out.

I was working for a bank,
an investment house,

writing reports for investors
about media companies.

And I had enjoyed
going to company chairmen

or chief executives
and challenging

what they were saying.

BSB, I think, was an
inappropriate investment

for bond.

The Guardianneeds a re-launch.

It's lost about 13% of
its readers.

The mess they're in
is trying to reduce salaries

and manning levels very quickly,

and the blame does lie
with the management.

I'd been following
Robert Maxwell and his companies

as part of that job, and indeed,
travelling round to see them

and talking to Robert Maxwell.

I actually saw him when he had
the annual results.

He was full of apparent
confidence.

Remember noticing his tie,
which had a giant green

soup stain on it,
and I was looking at it.

I'm afraid it was about
my height, as I'm smaller.

Maxwell was bigger.

I was wondering,
"Has no one dared to tell him?"

♪♪

I was 28 when I started
at the Financial Times

in August of the year
that Maxwell died, 1991,

and immediately began looking
into Maxwell as a journalist

because the signs that
something was going wrong

had begun pitching up
in the public domain.

And specifically, there were
signs that he had mortgaged

a lot of things
in his companies.

I knew that if he was
mortgaging that many things,

it was trying to raise money.
So it was out of confidence

of being a financial analyst
in the city,

it gave me a grounding
in the numbers

and a sense that the story
is often in the numbers,

and the numbers
are often public.

I started by saying
to the editor,

"Look, I'd like to get
a few company house reports

so that I can look
in more detail

about what's really going on."

And then a few turned
into a couple of dozen

and then a couple
of dozen turned into,

well, really quite
a few more dozen.

And this piled up,
and at some point he said,

"Look, just get everything."

♪♪

Each company would have
probably 30 pages.

I got all these
and spread them out

slowly on the floor
of the newsroom to try

and add up how much debt
the company had.

♪♪

We had to work out
what was owned by what

because only then
could you work out

how the debt was represented.

Many of them with peculiar
share ownership structures.

I would say like Russian dolls,
but that makes it too neat.

These were all over the place.

It's like someone has tidied up
a toddler's room

and just put the toys
randomly into different drawers

in order to clear things up
really quickly.

It was such an odd patchwork,

but then at the top
were constructions that were,

I think, we can assume,
done very carefully

that really made it very,
very hard

to work out what was
going on financially.

This really was not
a conventional business empire.

Everyone knew about
Maxwell Communications,

all the bombast Maxwell
brought to that

and Mirror Group Newspapers,
which had just floated.

But behind that was this web
of 800 private companies.

And I knew I had to get
the numbers right,

mapping and then re-mapping
all these companies

and then adding up the debt.

♪♪

But what became clear
very quickly

was that I was looking
at numbers

that implied
the real possibility

that the whole lot
was going to go down.

And then it flushed up
that Maxwell missing at sea.

And I felt the kind of rising
excitement of realising

that I had a really full picture
of this secretive world

that people didn't know about

in Robert Maxwell
at just the point

when everyone was demanding
to know exactly that.

And I was ready to go public.

♪♪

-How much do we really know

about the state
of the Maxwell financial empire?

-It's an extremely
complicated empire.

After a long investigation,
we've published tomorrow

that we think he has nearly

three quarters
of £1 billion of debt

in the private companies
on top of the debt

in the public companies.

That means after £1 billion
of sales of assets

and businesses this year,
the total Maxwell empire

still has over £2 billion
of debt.

-The death of Robert Maxwell
raises fundamental questions

about the future
of his huge empire.

Some city analysts say
he was the only person

who knew the ins
and outs of his businesses.

The sons who've taken over have
been groomed by their father

and, while less flamboyant,

are determined
to continue his traditions.

But how will the empire fare
under them?

-Members of the Maxwell family

have been meeting financial
advisers this morning

to plan the future
of the publishing empire.

-Personal business,
and the fact is, you know,

I'm clearly immensely saddened.

Some of the events
have been extremely shocking.

I lost my father,
so I would say that

it's a combination of events
that I wouldn't believe

if I read it in a novel.

-Kevin and Ian Maxwell, at that
point, were very much seen

as the brave sons
trying to cope with this loss.

And everyone was wondering

can the boys
manage to turn it around,

can they sell off bits
here and there

and just pay down the debt?

And then the full picture

began to emerge
of just how bad it was.

[ Siren wailing ]

-Tonight, a police van

pulled out of
Maxwell headquarters.

At the end of the day,
dramatic even by the standards

of the newspaper world.

♪♪

All day, detectives had crawled
through offices

where once Robert Maxwell sat
and ran his businesses.

♪♪

-I remember
the Serious Fraud Office

coming in very well.

I walked in there one morning,
and to my horror,

there were these great
big brutes of guys with a huge,

great big screwdriver,
biggest screwdriver

I've ever seen,
levering open filing cabinets.

And I said to them,
"Excuse me, I've got keys."

I was horrified,
and they just said to me,

"We won't be needing those," and
just carried on opening them up.

They were thugs.
They were awful. I hated them.

It was -- the whole thing turned
really nasty after that.

♪♪

[ Sirens wailing in distance ]

♪♪

♪♪

-You told me that you love
to be anonymous

and you love the fact
that not everybody really knows

who you are in New York.

-It's great.
I can -- I have my friends

and I can live my life
and people don't come up

and say,
"So, how you feeling," you know?

"So, you're okay?
How you doing?"

It's, I mean,
other people's lives

are very interesting, too.
I like to have the opportunity

to ask them questions.
I don't always like to be

the one that people
are asking the questions of.

-Now, there were so many
publications about your father.

I saw a picture of you and
your father and Queen Elizabeth.

And of course, you know,
you were the youngest,

you were
the closest one to him.

There is little girl,
like, suddenly to go

to another --
a different reality at all.

I mean --
-It's changed.

Nothing's changed.

I don't feel diminished at all.

I'm extremely sad that my father
is no longer here,

but I don't feel in any way
smaller or lesser

than what I was before.

I'm me.

I'm healthy. I'm very lucky.

And survival means
many different things

to different people.

Survival, in my case,

means getting up in the morning
and figuring out

a new life,
and smiling and being happy

and looking at
the positive side of things.

Life is sad.
It's always very sad

when you lose a parent,
but you have to go on.

I'd like to think that I'll be
able to do something positive,

and I can't say
what it is right now

because I'm working on it,
and until I've done it,

then everything is
just words again.

-Don't you feel insecure,
scared from the future?

-No.
I'm lucky I get to start again.

♪♪

♪♪

-During the '90s,
when I was in New York,

a friend invited me to a party

he was having at his house
in SoHo downtown,

and there were lots of people
there when I arrived,

and I went to sit at this long
table and there was Ghislaine.

We looked at each other
and we were like,

"Oh, yes, we've met before."

I'd met her a year previously
in London.

The thing that marked Ghislaine

was how extraordinarily
friendly she was,

how instantly she said
her name, said,

"You know, what's your name?
I'm Ghislaine."

She made you feel included.

She was very popular
because she was charming

and she was opinionated
and she was funny.

♪♪

This was a very different
Ghislaine.

She was a shrunken version

of the person that I'd met
the year previously.

Like she couldn't quite believe
what had happened to her.

-I hate to speculate
about your father.

What you think?
What happened to him?

-You'll never know, so there'll
never be any, you know --

It's one of those things.
Nobody was there, nobody saw,

so you'll never be 100% sure
of exactly what took place.

The only thing I'm sure of is
that he did not commit suicide.

-That's your 100% true.
-No question.

-I remember her inviting me
over to her apartment

and she was talking
about her father's death.

She was convinced
that he had been murdered.

The perception then,
which she seemed to encourage,

was that she was suddenly

extraordinarily well connected,
but kind of destitute.

That there was no money,

that everything had been

kind of plunged into chaos
with his death.

And she was reading off the
names of people she was talking,

including Henry Kissinger,
who had been asking about

how she was going, you know,
how she was going to make it

through this
extraordinary situation.

And she said, "I told Henry,
just watch in a year.

Come back, watch this space.
See what's happening.

I don't know
what it's going to be,

but it's going
to be interesting."

♪♪

-Here, the Serious Fraud Office

has begun an investigation
into the management

of pension funds
at Mirror Group Newspapers.

It's feared that around
£300 million

of pensioners' money
could be missing.

-Mirror Group workers turned up

at their Holborn offices
this morning

not knowing whether the pensions
they had contributed to

for years would ever be paid
in full or in part.

-This is a major scandal,

and the money will have
to be accounted for.

Pensioners have paid
for their moneys

and we expect
to see it returned to us.

♪♪

-News of the shortfall
in the Mirror Group's

pension fund has now pushed
the Maxwell Empire

to the very brink of collapse.

Last night, Robert Maxwell's
sons Ian and Kevin

resigned from their positions
as chairman of the empire's

two pillars,
Mirror Group Newspapers

and Maxwell Communications
Corporation.

-Within three or four days,

the headline was Maxwell had
stolen all the pension money.

The whole thing was just
more surreal than surreal.

♪♪

-And what became clear very
quickly was that it was a fraud

and that it had happened
very, very fast --

really, most of it within
the last 10 months

of Maxwell's life.

People wanted to know
where the money had gone,

how this could have happened,
and who was responsible.

-Now...

ladies and gentlemen,

inside here, no kidding,
is exactly

£1 million in cash.

Isn't that nice?
[ Applause ]

-The network of
Maxwell companies

was very, very complicated,

partly with a view, I think,
to keeping the world at bay

and not letting people
see what's going on.

The actual fraud
was very, very simple.

It's hard to get away
from the statement that

Maxwell basically
just took the money.

-Choose any package at all
you like.

Now, you're happy with
that packet?

It's heavy, isn't it?

Now, do you know
why that's heavy?

And they put it back.

[ Laughter ]

You've got to watch.

-Maxwell's companies had
massive debts,

billions of pounds.

He was really desperate
for cash,

selling businesses
where he could.

But it wasn't enough.

What he did
in the following year

was to just grab
big blocks of cash

that were sitting there,
or pension fund shares

that could be sold very quickly,
or the cash

that was in the bank accounts
of his public companies

and take it.

-There it is, £1 million.

And we're going to lower it
into this Perspex box here.

-The fact that he had powers
to do that is shocking.

But he did have the power
at that point

to remove the pension shares
and still legally use it

to pay off the bankers
of his private companies

who were beginning to panic
on the assurance

that the money would come back.

That never happened.

-So what I want to know is this.

How the dickens
did we get this

back inside it?

As large as life and still
full of the money.

There it is.

Isn't that good? Whoa!

And I've always wanted to
do this.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Amazing.

-The problem for a lot of
the people dealing with Maxwell,

dealing really closely
with Maxwell

for the last year of his life,

was that they were like
the blind man and the elephant.

They could see a part of it

or they could feel
a part of it, if you like,

but they couldn't see
the whole thing.

And those who had
their suspicions

were struggling to stop him.

-Lawrence was finance director
of Mirror Group Newspapers.

He was a gentle man.

You couldn't have
an argument with him.

He just was not
that way inclined.

Some people thought he was shy,
very determined, dogged.

There was no way if, you know,

if I asked him to do something
and he hadn't planned to do it,

then there was no way
it got done.

I think everyone found it very
difficult working for Maxwell.

He had everybody at loggerheads

because if if everybody is
at loggerheads with each other,

they're not going to
threaten him.

-This is for private purposes,
not for...

[ Indistinct conversation ]

♪♪

-I heard it described as a bit
like the leader of a wolf pack.

♪♪

Lawrence was always
wary of Maxwell.

But he began to suspect
something was wrong

when the Mirror was floated
on the stock market.

-On May 3rd,
the Mirror Group will cease

to be a private company
of media baron Robert Maxwell

and expects
to raise £250 million

by selling its shares
to investors and institutions.

-Whilst Maxwell continued
his desperate efforts

to raise cash,
Finance Director Lawrence Guest

noticed something worrying.

£38 million missing
from the accounts.

He shared his concern on
late night calls with his wife.

[ Receiver clicks ]

-But what Lawrence didn't know

was Maxwell was already
one step ahead of him.

-I was head of security
for Maxwell.

He had an expression
that trust was like virginity.

You only lost it once.

And certainly,
if a person was loyal,

he repaid that loyalty.

And he could be quite ruthless
to people that were not giving

their all for him
or were disloyal.

And he asked whether or not
we could record

the telephone conversations
to test to find out

whether or not this person
was being disloyal to him.

And he needed to have --
he needed to find out.

As it turned out,
the Finance Director,

Lawrence Guest,
was one of the targets.

[ Static ]

[ Telephone rings ]

[ Static ]

[ Telephone rings ]

-Maxwell said to Lawrence,

"You don't need to worry anymore
because it was out on loan"

and that it would be
coming back,

but it didn't ever come back.

And although he mentioned it to
auditors and merchant bankers,

nobody would -- didn't want
to know, I guess is the answer.

You know, he was told,
"We're not to worry.

It's not really your --
not your problem."

But as a finance
director for PRC,

he certainly felt,
with shareholders to account to,

he certainly felt that it was
his responsibility and problem.

Life got very unreal, is about
the only thing I can say.

Highly stressful.

And Lawrence was obviously
highly stressed

and couldn't and didn't really
want to believe,

you know, what was happening

or what he suspected
was happening.

And what he suspected
was that Maxwell

was taking money
out of the Mirror

to pay off debts
in his private companies.

But he couldn't prove it.

♪♪

♪♪

-Lawrence kept on knocking
on his door

and banging away and saying,
you know,

"What's happening to this money?

Belongs to the Mirror."

In the face of, really,
you know, a tyrant.

But without success.

He felt time was running out.

So Lawrence wrote a memo
to his fellow executives.

-I am now convinced that
MGN resources

have been used to support
other parts of the group,

but I have no proof.

I think that I frightened
the Chairman,

but my main concern
must be to get the money back.

I think I am in a situation
that nothing more will flow out,

although I don't have
the mechanism to stop it.

♪♪

[ Horns honking ]

-But what no one could see
was that the missing £38 million

was just the tip of the iceberg.

Maxwell would go on to plunder
more than £400 million,

and nobody had the power
to stop him.

-The man I was working for
told me

that they had had instructions
from Maxwell

that the directors
were not to meet each other

unless there was
a Maxwell present,

i.e. Kevin or Ian or himself.

And so my bosses had
these clandestine meetings,

and I knew they were passing
notes around and not talking

because I found a few notes
in the bin afterwards.

One of them I remember reading
said, "He knows that we know."

♪♪

By that time, we all realised

that there was
something going on.

He wasn't quite
as he used to be.

He looked a bit dishevelled
and a bit unkempt.

I noticed a couple of times
he had a button off his shirt

and his eating habits

were really,
really not very nice.

He just seemed to think
he could do what he liked.

He was becoming very suspicious.

He wasn't trusting anyone.

I think it just reflects
on how paranoid he was becoming.

♪♪

[ Applause ]

-At the Labour Party Conference
in Brighton that year,

Lawrence was taken aside by one
of the joint managing directors

and warned that
it was advisable for Lawrence

and not to be travelling
on public transport

and to take different routes
to the office by car every day,

not to --
not to have a pattern.

♪♪

It was very frightening.

♪♪

And then suddenly,

he disappeared.

♪♪

By the time it came to
the 5th of November,

it was Lawrence
or it was Maxwell.

That was how I felt.

You know, one or the other of
them had to go,

and to this day,

5th of November,
when I hear fireworks,

takes me straight back.

Yeah, to the relief.

♪♪

♪♪

-Do you feel there is
a terrible hatred

against your family in England?

Because, I mean, people are
really being cruel right now.

-I'm not in England,
so I don't know exactly.

It's very difficult for me
to gauge

what the feelings are there,

but I'm sure that there are
people who feel that way.

-Two years ago,
the name Maxwell was like

power or money, everything.

-What do you feel right now

when you're carrying this name?

-I don't know.
You tell me what you think.

I'm proud of it.

-I think I would still feel like
a little bit anger

that my dad
didn't even leave me one --

one security on this world.

-He was never going to leave us
any money anyway

in the first place.

-I mean, do you really believe

that he didn't intend
to leave you money?

-No.
-Why is that?

-Just my father believes that

you got to
make your own way in life.

♪♪

-These were sort of early days
for Ghislaine

living in New York.

The only people I saw her with
at the time were

bright Brits,

but by the time I saw her next,

she told me
that she had just met someone

staggeringly important.

Jeffrey Epstein.

And they were dating.

And she told me that she was not
only dating him,

but she was working for him

and that her job included
running all of his properties.

The first thing she wanted you
always to know about Jeffrey

was that he managed
people's money

and he would not take anyone

who had less than $1 billion.

That was the kind of shorthand
to let you know

that he was fantastically
brilliant and talented.

♪♪

After the prospect of financial
ruin after her father's death,

Jeffery represented

access to private planes
and yachts and wealth,

and she would do anything
in her power to please him.

But also it seemed like
a bizarre echo of the dynamic

between Ghislaine and her father

that she was acting out
with Epstein.

-Did she ever tell you about
how she met Jeffrey?

-She never told me
how she met Jeffrey Epstein.

And of course, we're all kind of
dying to know now.

-There is a photo taken,

I believe,
in the plaza ballroom

of Ghislaine,

and sitting next to Ghislaine
at dinner

is Jeffrey Epstein.

And that picture was taken
just under three weeks

after her father died.

Ghislaine is looking at
Jeffrey Epstein adoringly.

They don't look like two people
who've just met.

And I think they were
already friends,

and that, in fact,
Ghislaine went to New York

to see Jeffrey Epstein.

I've always thought to myself
that there was a reason

why the relationship
was kept so secret.

And I think it was
in their interests

that this would never get out.

I was working in the city
and I had some friends

who worked on Wall Street
during that time,

and they heard that
Jeffrey Epstein

and Robert Maxwell

had entered into an agreement
before Robert Maxwell's death

whereby certain funds
had been siphoned off,

because that's what
Jeffrey Epstein

was doing at the time.

He was helping very rich people

park their money offshore
to avoid tax.

When Robert Maxwell died,

Ghislaine was on the boat
in Tenerife,

and I was told that she found
some papers in his bedroom

where the name Jeffrey Epstein
came up.

Ghislaine gave an instruction
to the crew to shred all papers

which mentioned Jeffrey Epstein

and her father's connection
to him.

♪♪

♪♪

-Here, the Serious Fraud Office

is investigating
the movement of funds

out of the Maxwell pension funds

after the death
of Robert Maxwell.

-What do you say about reports
that some of the funds

from the Mirror pension
went missing

after your father's death?
-I have no comments on that.

-Can you comment on reports

in the paper this morning
that moneys were still leaving

the Mirror pension fund
after your father died?

-I can't comment on that.
Thank you, goodnight.

-As the fraud investigation
began to focus on Kevin and Ian,

my concern was more
whether we were keeping up

fast enough
with what was happening.

There was a sense of
drama and momentum.

And then Kevin and Ian
were called before

a House of Commons
select committee

to answer questions
on what they knew

about the missing pension funds.

♪♪

-Could I begin our proceedings
in thanking both Kevin Maxwell

and Ian Maxwell in coming?

We begin by our witnesses

identifying themselves
for the record.

Kevin Maxwell,
will you introduce your table?

-Yes, my name is Kevin Maxwell,
by profession a publisher.

On my right
is Mr. George Carmen, QC.

-I'm Ian Maxwell.

On my left is my counsel,
John Jarvis.

-Could you tell the committee
which pension trust funds

you belong to
and at what period?

[ Indistinct conversation ]

-I decline to answer.

[ Clears throat ]

-Kevin Maxwell, could I ask you
the same question?

-Again, the answer
will be given by my counsel.

-Position, Mr. Chairman, is,
and I repeat it with force,

that we shall not answer
any further questions

touching upon the pension funds,

and that position is made plain.

It will not be altered

however many questions
this committee poses

this afternoon.

-Kevin and Ian were the two
still left standing.

And I'm at home.

I lived in Chelsea,
and I got a phone call,

and it said, "The cops are going
to go and arrest Kevin.

You know where he lives?"

And so I got off
at the crack of dawn

and went straight
to Kevin's gate.

And then the cops arrived,
plainclothes boys.

"Morning, gentlemen."

And they walked up the path,

and bang, bang, bang,
bang, bang on the door.

And Pandora, Kevin's wife,
throws open the upstairs window.

[ Window opens ]

-Piss off.
He don't get up for an hour.

[ Doorbell ringing ]

I am about to call the police.

-We are the police.
Can you open your door?

-[ Laughs ]

So next thing
is Kevin's laid out,

you know, and taken away,
arrested.

-Hours later at Snow Hill
Police Station,

just a few hundred yards
from the hub of

the failed
Robert Maxwell empire,

the men were charged.

After trial by rumor,
a trial by innuendo,

I am really looking forward to
being able to

defend myself in a court of law,

where I intend to vigourously

and strenuously contest all
and any charges against me.

Thank you.

♪♪

-Enough!

Thank you.

[ Camera shutters clicking ]

[ Indistinct conversation ]

-In the run up
to the criminal trial,

Kevin Maxwell, like his father
before him, turns to the media.

-30 coming on commercial paper.

-He invites cameras
behind the scenes

to tell his side of the story.

-The Gallup poll was
commissioned by the defence

to provide evidence

of what the public thought
about the defendants.

It was deeply shocking to think

that there were just millions
of people out there

who thought I was
a complete bastard.

I don't think there's any
possibility of finding 12 people

who won't have already made
their minds up about my father,

who won't already have decided
that he's a crook,

who won't be able
to come into the court

and put all that stuff
out of their minds.

-[ Speaks indistinctly ]

-And warranted profitability.

Have increased to 2 --
what is it?

-What upsets me the most is
this notion that my father and I

and other people would
sit around a table plotting

to rob old-age pensioners.

It is the most obscene idea.

Am I guilty
of bad business judgement?

Yes. Could we have
done things differently?

Yes. Should we have
done things differently?

Yes. Was it criminal?

No.

♪♪

-Robert Maxwell's sons
Kevin and Ian

have denied conspiring

to defraud their company's
pension scheme

at the start
of their trial in London.

They're accused of dishonestly
using pension fund shares

in an attempt to rescue
the indebted Maxwell Group.

-The sheer size of the case
was enormous.

I mean, I remember it being
portrayed in the media

covering the case at the time
as the case of the century.

I felt completely prepared,

and that the allegations we made
was entirely sustainable.

-Kevin Maxwell arrived at court
to hear himself described

by the prosecution
as the man most responsible

for the misuse
of pension fund assets.

-The trial was complicated.

And I think the prosecutors
were very conscious of the fact

there've been quite a lot
of white-collar crime trials

that were perceived to be
very, very complicated

and with a lot of worry about
whether juries could cope

with the complexity
and the length of these trials.

And so they broke it
into half a dozen pieces,

different bits of fraud,
if you like.

♪♪

A lot of this was going to
turn on knowledge

of the whole picture,
because at that point,

almost all of
the movements of money,

including movements of money and
shares out of the pension funds,

those weren't illegal,
and were only illegal

if the person doing that

knew that the money
couldn't come back.

And so the prosecutors

were going to need to rely,
at some point,

on knowledge
of the whole picture realisation

that the money wasn't there.

-Kevin's defence was that
he believed

the shares were legitimately
owned by the Maxwell companies

because his father
had told him so.

The case continues tomorrow.

-Kevin spent 21 days
in the witness box.

The ordeal, the pressure of that

is is almost impossible
to understand.

But 21 days consecutively
of the world's focus

on everything you say,
how you say it is a scrutiny

that I would
not personally relish.

-Jurors in the trial of
Kevin and Ian Maxwell

have retired
to consider their verdicts.

They've heard from 70 witnesses
over the past eight months.

♪♪

-You hate the sound
of the phone ringing

because that's the only --
that's the message

to summon you back to court.

To every call, I think,
"Is that the one?"

It's very nerve-racking.
You don't know

if you're being convicted
and going to prison

or going home.

-The jury were out, I think,
for 11 days.

And it's a long,
concerning wait.

♪♪

I got a phone call
from the law clerk.

The jury had reached verdicts.

♪♪

♪♪

-I am very pleased and relieved
by my acquittal.

I gave evidence in this trial
over a period of 21 days.

In his summing up,

the judge said
he thought no jury

had had a better opportunity

of assessing the honesty
of a witness than in my case.

-Kevin and Ian had
a horrendous legacy.

Their father always vowed
that he would give them nothing.

No doubt they wish
their inheritance

had been that benign.

-I think any father-son
relationship is a complex one,

and I haven't worked it out yet.

I still think of him with
an immense amount of fondness,

irrespective of the problems
and irrespective

of the aftermath of the crash.

I find it very difficult
to blame him for it.

♪♪

♪♪

-I remember I was
at an art opening,

and I ran into Ghislaine,
and she seemed very kind of...

...not stressed out exactly,
but in a sort of

froth of excitement and purpose.

And she's...

"I'm going to introduce you
to Jeffrey,"

as if, you know, "Watch out.

You're about to meet the
president of the United States."

So she introduced me to him.

What I noticed was a sort
of a permanent smirk,

as if he had access
to information

and funds and intelligence

that you could not
possibly fathom.

♪♪

And the next time I met him
was a deeply weird situation.

Ghislaine hired me
to write a song

and perform it for
Jeffrey Epstein's 40th birthday.

But Ghislaine
was very insistent

I could tell no one
about this assignment.

I could only talk to her.

She would provide me
with the information.

But it had to have these lines.

It had to --
One of them had to be that

Ghislaine claims
he has 24-hour erections.

One of the verses
had to be something about

when he was a schoolteacher
at Dalton School,

he was the subject
of many schoolgirl crushes,

and she seemed to know that that
would amuse him tremendously

and that it would also
resonate with his friends

who would be there
for this party.

♪♪

So I arrived at this house,

this giant house,
that seemed deeply mysterious.

I was ushered into the kitchen.

I think there was six guys
wearing black tie.

And it was just a power group

who were Epstein's
closest associates.

And it was after dinner
and they were smoking cigars

and drinking brandy.

And I had to do
this sort of roast of Epstein.

♪♪

♪♪

Everyone sort of
roared with laughter

because they seemed
to know him extremely well.

But there was a strange rumour
going around the room.

He likes younger women,

and Ghislaine introduces him
to younger women.

It seemed, I mean,

profoundly weird.

At the time, I have to say that
it just seemed deeply weird,

but not -- it didn't seem
sinister at the time.

I guess we were being
very naive, extremely naive,

and in retrospect,
horrifyingly naive.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-Ghislaine Maxwell has been
arrested by the FBI,

charged with grooming girls
as young as 14.

-The scale of
the sex trafficking operation

is astronomical.

-It was just like a factory.

He was running a machine,
and she was the one

operating it.

-This is the trial
of the century.

-Our sister is presumed innocent

until a verdict comes in.

-We're not gonna answer
any questions.

-Ghislaine knew what was
going to happen to me.

The world shifted
for me that day.

-What do you know,
Ghislaine Maxwell?

What do you know?

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪