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Jes Staley sent an email to his daughter referring to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein as “uncle Jeffrey”, a court heard on Wednesday, as the ex-Barclays boss attempts to challenge regulators’ allegations that he played down his ties to the late financier.

In a tense hearing in London, during which Staley accused the Financial Conduct Authority of an “invasion” of his family’s privacy, the court heard that Epstein had mentored Alexa Staley and allegedly helped her apply to Columbia University, which Staley vigorously denied. 

“I think there’s an invasion of my family here and I resent it,” he said, after seeing emails in which he appeared to have shared his daughter’s academic scores with Epstein. “This exposure of my daughter is really important to you,” Staley added under cross-examination by Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC for the FCA.

The court heard that Staley forwarded an email he had received from Epstein in April 2009 to Alexa, in which the sex offender proposed that he introduce her to prominent individuals in the science world over lunch. Staley told his daughter that the email “is from uncle Jeffrey”.

Months earlier Epstein faced allegations from prosecutors that he paid multiple women, some of them underage, for massages that ended in sexual activity. Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Staley, 68, was on his third day of testimony in his legal challenge against the FCA, which accuses Staley of downplaying his links to the dead sex offender. Staley became visibly incensed as Mulcahy pressed him on whether his daughter had received academic help from Epstein, including work at the renowned large-scale physics experiment known as LIGO.

The FCA does not allege that Staley, who quit Barclays in 2021, was aware of Epstein’s criminality.

The FCA is seeking to prove that Staley’s ties to Epstein went beyond that of a professional relationship and that the characterisation of their relationship as “not close” in a letter sent to the regulator by Barclays in August 2019 was misleading.

Epstein died in a New York prison cell earlier that month after being charged with sex trafficking. He had previously pleaded guilty to separate charges of soliciting a minor in 2008 in Florida. After this earlier conviction, Staley has acknowledged that he visited Epstein during the latter’s work release from custody.

Mulcahy had earlier shown Staley an email he sent to Epstein in March 2011, in which he wrote: “Debbie [Staley’s wife] and I were talking tonight about what you have meant to me and to Alexa. You paid a price for what has been accused but we know what you have done for us . . . we count you as one of our deepest friends and most honest people.”

His daughter had attended a party hosted by Epstein in 2012 and attended a conference with him in Vancouver at his invitation, the FCA alleged.

Mulcahy also referenced several emails in which Epstein and Staley referred to each other as family, including an exchange between Epstein and the UK’s Prince Andrew, in which Epstein wrote: “I know you were seeing Jes Staley this morning, he’s like family and can be trusted 100%.” 

The court has previously heard during the high-profile trial that Staley told a senior Barclays colleague that he never would have introduced his family to a convicted paedophile.