UK Police Assessing Stansted Airport Private Flights Over Epstein Ties

Published: 18 February 2026. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online

British police are reviewing information about private flights into and out of London Stansted Airport after the release of millions of documents connected to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, authorities confirmed on Tuesday. The development has triggered renewed scrutiny over whether some of these flights were used to traffic women and girls into the United Kingdom — including allegations involving prominent figures.

Essex Police, the force covering the area around Stansted, said it is “assessing the information that has emerged” from recently published files of the US Department of Justice (DoJ) related to Epstein’s private jet movements. The files, released under a transparency law in the United States, include flight logs, emails, and correspondence showing that Epstein’s aircraft — often dubbed the “Lolita Express” — made dozens of landings at UK airports, including around 90 flights to or from the UK, with at least 15 after his 2008 conviction for sex offences.

The assessment does not yet amount to a formal criminal investigation, but it has drawn significant political pressure. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for a full inquiry, citing documents that appear to show how private jets may have been used to bring women from Eastern European countries — including Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia — to Stansted without standard immigration scrutiny, before onward travel. He has urged police to reconsider whether victims were trafficked and to investigate whether officials sufficiently understood the scope of these flights at the time.

The latest review comes amid a broader coordinated response: several UK police forces, including Surrey, Thames Valley, and the Metropolitan Police, are separately examining information from the Epstein files. Thames Valley Police, for example, is assessing allegations involving a woman flown to the UK that relate to Andrew Mountbatten‑Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, though he has denied any wrongdoing. Other lines of inquiry include whether public figures may have committed misconduct in public office by sharing sensitive information with Epstein associates.

Stansted Airport itself has stressed that private jet operations are managed by independent fixed‑base operators (FBOs) and that immigration and customs checks on private aircraft are conducted separately by Border Force officials. The airport says it does not manage or track passenger arrangements on such flights.

Victims’ advocates and lawmakers are watching closely. Many argue that the scale of alleged private flights, combined with the newly available documentary evidence, warrants deeper scrutiny and possibly a dedicated public inquiry into how airline movements, immigration oversight, and aviation regulation intersected with networked abuse. For British authorities, the challenge now lies in determining whether historical civil aviation records provide a basis for criminal investigations or prosecutorial action.

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