It's obviously horrifying, in the most authentic sense of the word. But I think it's really only now that I am realising the scale of how many kids he abused - he bragged about huge numbers - just how? And how brazen he was, people knew to varying degrees, so how did this all go on so long?
How are there SO MANY vulnerable kids out there, that this can happen? It is on a different scale to an opportunistic predator who manages to abuse a kid because their parents maybe don't know where they are but assume they're ok, would never suspect the abuser, think he's decent, or whatever.
Just how are there so many kids who literally don't have someone to notice if they have been taken away in a plane by a middle aged man?? Wtf. And of course Epstein was an extreme predator with a lot of money to carry out his crimes, but the fact it happened at all probably means there are many men who are modestly well off who can pay for access to underage girls to abuse, fairly easily.
I can't get my head around it. It is my understanding that the majority of child abuse is perpetrated by a family member or someone close to the child, and that things like Rotherham are rare, relatively. But all the Epstein stuff suggests that abusing kids is sort of an accepted open secret in certain circles with money, where they aren't automatically ostracised or shunned for it. Wtf 