Ex-Barclays boss claims his marriage is at risk after admitting in court to sex with Epstein employee
The former bank boss Jes Staley has claimed his honesty in court has “put my marriage at risk” after his lawyer complained that forcing him to disclose he had sex with a member of Jeffrey Epstein’s staff had resulted in “public humiliation”.The ex-Barclays chief executive capped off three and a half days of cross-examination by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) by suggesting his willingness to endure scrutiny showed he had no interest in misleading the regulator, which alleges he lied about the depth of his relationship with Epstein.Staley is trying to overturn the FCA’s 2023 ruling that led to a lifetime ban from the City and the loss of £18m in pay and bonuses from Barclays.Speaking at the Upper Tribunal in London on Thursday, he said: “On my own costs, I crossed the Atlantic to be in the tribunal to be open and honest.I could have stayed at home.
I am here to provide clarity to this tribunal.I’m not here to mislead.”Staley, who has a wife and two daughters, told the court: “I have been honest such that I have put my marriage at risk these last few days.I have never shied away from telling the truth about all of this … I would not try to mislead the FCA.I never have and I never will.
”The comments came a day after he admitted to having intercourse with a woman on Epstein’s staff in a New York apartment owned by the child sex offender’s brother.Staley indicated that it had been consensual but had taken place without the late financier’s knowledge.The FCA had raised questions over the sexual encounter as part of efforts to illustrate that Staley and Epstein were “indeed close” and had a relationship that “went beyond one that was professional in nature”.The case centres on a letter that Barclays sent to the FCA in 2019, which declared that the pair “did not have a close relationship” and that Staley’s last contact with Epstein was “well before” he joined Barclays in 2015.The FCA had originally inquired about their ties in summer 2019, weeks after Epstein was remanded in custody to face trial for trafficking underage girls for sex.
Epstein died in prison in August 2019.But Staley’s lawyer, Robert Smith KC, alleged that the FCA referred to the sexual encounter in open court “without any warning”, leading to the “public humiliation of Mr Staley” as the news hit newspaper headlines.The barrister said he was “hugely concerned on Mr Staley’s behalf that he should be treated this way”.The FCA’s lawyer, Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC, said Staley was given an opportunity to respond in private, but had not applied to do so.“Mr Staley knew this was coming, I dealt with it as fairly and sensitively as I could, I explained the purpose, that it was not meant to intrude on his private life”, but “solely done on relevance to his relationship with Mr Epstein”.
The judge, Tim Herrington, said he did not think anything more could be done at this stage, but told Smith: “You’ve made the point, and the world would have heard what has been said.”The court was shown emails suggesting that Staley and Epstein were strategising on how to deal with media inquiries over their relationship weeks before Barclays announced his appointment as CEO on 28 October 2015.The Mail on Sunday had contacted Epstein with claims he lobbied Barclays to appoint Staley both in 2012 and 2015.Epstein forwarded questions from the paper to Staley, who later replied to say: “Ok.I’m going to play is [sic] simple.
I’ve known you as a client.I will tell B tomorrow.Let me know if they say something else.But stay away from them.I’m fine.
”Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionStaley told the court he could not be sure whether “B” referred to Barclays or his former employer, Blue Mountain Capital.The former Barclays boss also denied that he had used his daughter as a “vehicle for communication” with Epstein until at least 2017 – two years after Staley claimed to have ceased contact due to taking the top role at Barclays.The court was presented emails showing that Epstein asked Staley’s daughter to relay questions to Staley, to gather his opinion on other bankers in the industry, and to help connect Staley with royalty in the Middle East.The FCA said it appeared Staley responded to these queries.In one case, his daughter responded to Epstein’s query about whether Staley might want to be considered for a position in the US Treasury.
“Spoke with him,He said not yet, but thanks,” she said,Staley said he did not recall any of those conversations, and he did not realise at the time that his daughter and Epstein were still corresponding,He is due to spend one more day in the witness box on Friday, as he is re-examined by his own lawyers in the final day of the hearing,
Apple to appeal against UK government data demand at secret high court hearing
Apple’s appeal against a UK government demand to access its customers’ highly encrypted data will be the subject of a secret high court hearing, the Guardian understands.The appeal on Friday will be considered by the investigatory powers tribunal, an independent court that has the power to investigate claims that the UK intelligence services have acted unlawfully.It is against an order served by the Home Office in February under the Investigatory Powers Act, which compels companies to provide information to law enforcement agencies.The Home Office asked for the right to see users’ encrypted data in the event of a national security risk. Currently, not even Apple can access data and documents protected by its advanced data protection (ADP) programme
ChatGPT firm reveals AI model that is ‘good at creative writing’
The company behind ChatGPT has revealed it has developed an artificial intelligence model that is “good at creative writing”, as the tech sector continues its tussle with the creative industries over copyright.The chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman, said the unnamed model, which has not been released publicly, was the first time he had been “really struck” by the written output of one of the startup’s products.In a post on the social media platform X, Altman wrote: “We trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). This is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI.”AI systems such as ChatGPT are the subject of a running legal battle between AI companies and the creative industries because their underlying models are “trained” on reams of publicly available data, including copyright-protected material such as novels and journalism
iPhone 16e review: Apple’s cheapest new phone
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Elon Musk claims ‘massive cyber-attack’ caused X outages
Elon Musk claimed on Monday afternoon that X was targeted in a “massive cyber-attack” that resulted in the intermittent service outages that had brought down his social network throughout the day. The platform, formerly known as Twitter, had been unresponsive for many users as posts failed to load.“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” the platform’s CEO posted. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”Downdetector, a website that monitors outages on various sites and platforms, showed thousands of reports of outages that initially spiked at about 5
The making of Elon Musk: how did his childhood in apartheid South Africa shape him?
The billionaire and now Trump adviser grew up amid the collapse of white rule, attending an all-white school and then a more liberal oneWith an imposing double-winged redbrick main building, and school songs lifted directly from Harrow’s songbook, Pretoria boys high school is every inch the South African mirror of the English private schools it was founded in 1901 to imitate.Elon Musk, who has rapidly become one of the most powerful people in US politics, spent his final school years in the 1980s as a day pupil on the lush, tree-filled campus in South Africa’s capital, close to his father’s large detached home in Waterkloof, a wealthy Pretoria suburb shaded by purple jacaranda blossoms in spring.South Africa was rocked by uprisings as apartheid entered its dying years. In 1984, black townships across the country revolted. By 1986, the white minority government had imposed a state of emergency
Skype shutdown surfaces sweet memories: ‘I proposed marriage’
Microsoft announced on the last day of February that it would sunset Skype. By the time the death knell tolled, the video chatting software that once revolutionized communications had become a ghost of its former self. Experts chimed in with half-hearted eulogies for the platform that Microsoft spent years neglecting, yet few were surprised, and even fewer shed tears.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link
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