Peter Mandelson appears to have met Jeffrey Epstein at New York mansion on a taxpayer-funded trip – while billionaire paedophile was under house arrest, new documents show

Peter Mandelson appears to have met Jeffrey Epstein on a taxpayer-funded trip to America when the disgraced financier was under house arrest for sex offences, newly-uncovered documents indicate.

Epstein’s private schedule, unearthed by The Mail on Sunday, reveals Lord Mandelson was due to have two meetings with the convicted paedophile at his £60 million New York mansion on consecutive days in March, 2010, while on a trip that cost taxpayers more than £8,000.

At the time Lord Mandelson was Business Secretary and First Secretary of State – effectively the second most powerful politician in Gordon Brown’s government as de facto deputy prime minister.

Epstein, meanwhile, was under house arrest after being sentenced in 2008 to 18 months in jail by a Florida court for procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute. 

Last night the Foreign Office refused to answer questions, including whether the Labour grandee’s two meetings with Epstein took place. 

Lord…