Lucia Osborne-Crowley – The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell

‘A blazing book that puts the criminal justice system under the microscope’ The Independent

In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors and is now serving 20 years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of four girls. Journalist Lucia Osborne-Crowley was one of the only reporters allowed into the courtroom every day. In her meticulous account of this incendiary trial, she paints a blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors. Written as a gripping true crime drama, The Lasting Harm questions our appetite for crime and punishment, offering a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice.

Lucia Osborne-Crowley is a trained lawyer, legal reporter and journalist and the author of two books, I Choose Elena (2019) and My Body Keeps Your Secrets (2021), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award. Her forensic but accessible reporting of the Maxwell trial was described as some of the best and most trauma-informed coverage of the case, and it saw her social media following grow by over 35,000 followers. She has appeared as an expert journalist on the Maxwell and Prince Andrew cases on BBC News, Sky News, LBC News and BBC Radio among others. Her analysis appeared in print in The Independent and ABC News. Elsewhere, her news reporting has appeared in the Guardian, The Sunday Times and GQ Magazine and her literary writing has been published in Granta and Meanjin.