Mandelson vetted despite Epstein concerns raised to UK authorities months earlier

A senior British official brokered a meeting between the NCA and a human-rights activist, who said they had fresh information about Mandelson and Epstein. Downing Street was informed about the allegations later in 2024, according to the senior official.

The episode shows that high-ranking figures in UK law enforcement had been alerted to concerns about the Labour peer and the convicted sex offender months before Mandelson was nominated as British ambassador to Washington.

Mandelson was appointed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in December 2024 before security vetting took place. He started the role in February 2025, despite Cabinet Office officials recommending that he should be denied vetting clearance because of his business links to China. He was sacked seven months later, when further revelations of his relationship with Epstein emerged.

After the initial meeting between the NCA and the American activist, who had played a role in exposing Epstein’s crimes, the law enforcement agency held follow-up meetings but concluded that the allegations were based largely on hearsay and did not warrant a full investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The NCA informed the senior official of its conclusion that summer. The official told the FT they then informed Downing Street.

Downing Street has faced heavy pressure to explain what it, and Starmer in particular, knew — and when — about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein, who was convicted of sex offences in 2008.

It insisted last September that materially new information had come to light in the so-called Epstein files. This included correspondence between the envoy and Epstein, which showed Mandelson offered to support him in June 2008 before the financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a child.

Starmer sacked Mandelson that month and said of him: “Had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him.”

However, in 2023 the FT had reported that a private JPMorgan report had found emails suggesting that in 2009 Mandelson, then UK business secretary, had stayed in Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse while the sex offender was in jail. The FT asked Starmer directly about the report in January 2024.

When the Metropolitan Police launched a criminal investigation into Mandelson on suspicion of misconduct in public office in February this year, the senior official who had connected the human rights campaigner to the NCA in 2024 briefed the Foreign Office about the matter. Mandelson has denied wrongdoing.

Sir Olly Robbins, then permanent secretary at the department, wrote to the NCA about the episode, in case the agency wished to pass the information to the police to aid its investigation, according to one of the people.

The NCA did not pass on the information, sticking with its initial assessment, according to another person familiar with the matter.

The NCA and the Met Police have had discussions about other elements of Mandelson’s links with Epstein, the people said.

Downing Street declined to comment. The NCA said it neither confirmed nor denied being passed any information. The Met Police declined to comment.

Mandelson’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.