In the first instance and people need to understand this:
When a woman (or man) is trafficked they cannot give consent. Never. It doesn't matter if they throw themselves on you naked and scream 'take me now!' To sleep with a trafficked person is rape by default.
Ok. So now this claim that he didn't understand she wasn't consenting. She looked happy and willing. I'm sure she may well have. Groomed victims do.
But I have to ask myself:
On what planet?
On what planet does anyone think a 17 year old is voluntarily on the game? That out of all life's choices this is the one they arrived upon? Let's remember in the UK 16 was and remains the age of sexual consent, but you have to be 18 to buy alcohol. To vote. To even choose certain career paths like Social Work.
So on what planet do you not stop and think: 'Fucking for favours is a bloody extreme career choice for a 17 year old? How on earth did she get here? Where's her family? 🤔
How is it possible that a man of 40+ with lots of experience of women under his belt, a divorcee with daughters nearly the same age no less, thinks: Oh this 17 year old is hanging around with this incredibly wealthy and well connected sophisticated businessman (Epstein) that she has zero, nada, numero uno, family connection with and is out here fucking me 100% by free choice? My 40 + year old dick is so irresistible this 17 year old just can't get enough? There's nothing else she'd rather be doing? AT 17? He's never heard of the concept of a woman faking it? Prince Andrew ex army hero had never heard of girls being forced into prostitution?
I know he's not perceived as the most intelligent of the late Queens children, he let himself be actually photographed with Virginia after all, with his arms around her no less, I mean a clown would see him coming. But could he really be that naive and sophisticated in the wars of the world?
The man served in the army and the male banter is sexually crude as F. I really, really cannot see him being so naive.
Perhaps once. Maybe. His upbringing involves perhaps a derogatory perception of commoners. I could see his arrogance letting him overlook all sense. But he never felt uneasy the (alleged) second time? Third?
The other stray girls wandering around with no family either? Giving massages with favours out of genuine desire? Riding in private jets? He didn't think they were at least recruited for a job. And whom did he think was paying?
He must of known it weren't a good look, because he appeared to never talk about it (as far as we know) and when he did it was to deny he had ever met the woman concerned.
.