| Award-winning writer and journalist, Lucia Osborne-Crowley, introduces her powerful new book, The Lasting Harm. The book recounts the 2021 sex-trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein, but rather than focus on the abusers, it prioritises the voices and lives of survivors. She will be in conversation with Sian Norris, Senior Investigative Reporter at openDemocracy.
Here’s more on the book from publisher, Harpercollins:
‘In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors, and now faces 55 years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of four girls. The trial was meticulously covered by journalist and legal reporter Lucia Osborne-Crowley, one of only four reporters allowed into the courtroom every day.
‘The Lasting Harm is her account of that trial, a gripping true crime drama and a blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors, no matter the outcome.
‘Centring the stories of four women and their testimonies, and supplemented by extra material to which Osborne-Crowley has exclusive access, The Lasting Harm brings this incendiary trial to life, questions our age-old appetite for crime and punishment and offers a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice.’
Reviews:
‘Lucia Osborne-Crowley has a deep commitment to telling survivor stories – and telling them well. Lucia is a courageous silence-breaker: she broke the silence by sharing her own story and now devotes her skills to help others tell theirs. We need more journalists like her’ Jennifer Robinson, award-winning barrister
‘Powerful, vivid and affecting. A thoughtful, responsible, compassionate account of the consequences of crime’ David Nicholls, author of One Day
‘Urgent, necessary and courageous’ Elizabeth Day, author of How To Fail
‘We don’t need another book about rich men. The book we need is this one: centering the stories of vulnerable teenage girls and how they were used up and thrown away by those rich men’ Jolyon Maugham, Director of the Good Law Project
‘Osborne-Crowley a tenacious and empathetic chronicler of the world who provides a voice for those who have been silenced’ Rebecca Watson, author of Little Scratch
‘Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s vital work is driven integrity, a desire to bear witness, a dedication to the stories, experiences and truths of those who so often go unheard and unheeded’ Kieran Goddard, author of I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning
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Lucia Osborne-Crowley is an award-winning writer and journalist. Her news reporting and literary work have appeared in Granta, GQ, The Sunday Times, HuffPost UK, the Guardian, ABC News, Meanjin, The Lifted Brow and others. She currently works as a court reporter for Law360, a US newswire covering courts and crime across the world. She is also a trained lawyer. Her first book, I Choose Elena, was published in 2019 and has since been published in four territories and three languages. My Body Keeps Your Secrets, Lucia’s second book, published in September 2021, was awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize for Literature in 2022.
Sian Norris is a journalist. She is currently Senior Investigative Reporter at openDemocracy, and has written for the Observer, the Times, the Guardian, i news, Lead UK, the Ferret and many more. Her first book. Bodies Under Siege: How the far right attack on reproductive rights went global, was published by Verso in 2023. |
