Ruth Dudley Edwards: I believe Peter Mandelson when he says that he did not know that Jeffrey Epstein was a criminal liar
I see that Peter Mandelson is in the hot seat again and in danger of losing his job as UK ambassador to the US.
He says he naively believed the protestations of innocence offered him by his then friend Jeffrey Epstein, whom he came to realise was “a charismatic, criminal liar” whom he regrets ever meeting.
And he says he feels “a tremendous sense, a profound sense, of sympathy for those women who suffered as a result of his behaviour”.
There are many who are gloating and sneering.
Call me equally naïve, but I believe him.
And not just because Epstein would never have offered young women to someone so openly gay.
I have had a great deal to do with politicians over decades of championing victims, and two stand out as truly empathetic: the Conservative Lord Salisbury and Labour’s Mandelson.
Without their commitment, the Omagh victims would never have been able to get the case against the murderers of their loved ones off the ground.
Far more typical was Clare Short.
I remember vividly from almost twenty years ago responding to her polite enquiry about what I was doing now by telling her about the Omagh case.
“She looked at me with what seemed like a mixture of impatience and pity,” I wrote afterwards. “‘Why pick at the scabs?’”
I am a great admirer of the staff and volunteers who have made SEFF (the South East Fermanagh Foundation) such a fighting force for victims and survivors in these two islands.
Its Director, Kenny Donaldson, is also Spokesman for Innocent Victims United — an umbrella organisation for 23 groups covering the period from late 1960s to 1998 euphemistically known as the Troubles.
It plays a vital role in spotlighting injustices in how historical investigations and legacy issues are handled, not least in opposing the classification of those involved in violence as victims.
On Tuesday I went to a seminar in Westminster of The Northern Ireland Conflict on the Margins of History: Protestant Memory on the Border.
Ken Funston — one of the authors — was the main speaker and touched eloquently on the terrible stories he recounts based on many interviews with victims of (mainly IRA) sectarian murder squads.
I’ve read his book, and as has happened to me so often with this subject, I was profoundly distressed above all with the cruelties that befell the Graham family with the brutal murders of Ronnie, Cecil and Jimmy and the accidental killing at a checkpoint of their sister Hilary, who was also a member of the UDR.
Have a look at a document online (the web version of this article will link to it at the address: https://seff.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/SEFFs-Border-Trail-Flyer-South-East-Fermanagh.pdf) for details of the slaughter of the brothers’ and many many more.
SEFF is doing fine work in telling the truth of what happened to ordinary people targeted by merciless terrorists who whooped at the murders and blackened the names of the victims.
It needs to be spread far and wide.
Think of the movie Saving Private Ryan, someone commented the other night and consider what Hollywood could do with the Grahams.
Oh, and please give Peter Mandelson the benefit of the doubt.
• Ruth Dudley Edwards is the author of ‘The Faithful Tribe: an intimate portrait of the loyal institutions’ and 'Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing and the Families’ Pursuit of Justice’