Published: 20 February 2026
It’s important not to overlook that the declassified files, which precipitated the collapse of Peter Mandelson’s career, expose the depth and complexity of Epstein’s web of influence. Epstein was not merely a criminal; he was a calculated predator who embedded himself within elite circles to extract influence, protection, and access, leaving widespread harm in his wake. This pattern of remorseless exploitation, strategic social manipulation, and emotional emptiness is consistent with textbook traits of psychopathy, and the continuing political fallout underscores the risks posed when elite perpetrators can access and exploit powerful people.
But although it may appear that grooming of children and adults is perpetrated by ‘the elite’ or those perceived to have power and money grooming is not confined to wealthy or well-connected individuals. In the UK, recorded offenders are most commonly white males, typically in their teens through to their eighties. Apart from local groupings, there is no reliable evidence that Asian or Pakistani‑heritage men are disproportionately represented nationally. Many offenders come from economically deprived areas, while others are educated – what unites them is calculated exploitation rather than social status. Offenders often exploit vulnerable girls, boys and women for reasons of power and sexual gratification. Young men are groomed too but this remains highly stigmatised, with low reporting rates obscuring the abuse suffered by this group.
The Epstein affair has become a global symbol of exploitation, secrecy, and the abuse of power. While the case is extraordinary in scale and visibility, many commentators have noted that its underlying psychological mechanisms resemble those seen in more familiar grooming processes. Understanding the affair as a distortion—rather than a departure—from ordinary grooming helps illuminate how exploitation can flourish when power, wealth, and social networks amplify dynamics that are otherwise seen in more everyday contexts of coercive control.
Grooming, in a psychological sense, refers to a gradual process through which an individual builds trust, dependency, and emotional vulnerability in order to manipulate or exploit another person. It typically involves stages: identifying a vulnerable target, establishing trust, creating a sense of specialness or exclusivity, and slowly normalising boundary violations. In ordinary circumstances, grooming often occurs in private, within families, schools, or community settings. It is insidious precisely because it hides within relationships that appear caring or protective.
The reality is, whether the perpetrator is well connected and powerful or economically deprived, they abuse their position of power to develop a relationship of trust only to betray their victim for personal gain or gratification. The victim is reduced to an object for sexual pleasure, reflecting the offender’s profound lack of empathy. In a clinical setting, a psychological assessment may well have revealed that Epstein’s manipulative charm, business and carefully constructed social persona were deliberately designed to conceal not only his systematic sexual abuse of vulnerable women and girls, but a chronic pattern of deceit and a dangerous absence of empathy.
However, the extensive focus on local Pakistani groups and people like Epstein detracts from a much wider and dangerous problem, that of the scale of grooming of children and adults. Against a background of estimates suggesting between seven and 11 percent of reported childhood sexual abuse – a figure likely to be underreported as many people disclose sexual abuse later in life, if at all – there are no clear figures of the prevalence of grooming. However, the available evidence consistently shows that most children who are abused, are targeted by people they know and with whom they have a ‘trusting’ relationship. The difficulty is that grooming is a process which is hard to measure.
The Epstein revelations, the full extent of which may still not be known, need to be addressed because of the abuse suffered by victims and the wider consequences of abuse of power by those in positions of public responsibility. But these headlines must not distract from the many victims who are groomed within ordinary, familiar environments - and are frequently much closer to home than many might expect.
