Convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein left a young woman in fear for her life after cornering her on his private jet and groping her. Speaking in a chilling interview, Juliette Bryant feared she would never see her family again when Epstein began molesting her, hours after he recruited her from Cape Town as a 20-year-old aspiring model.

Now aged 43, Ms Bryant told Sky News she was lured from South Africa in 2002 with the promise of a glamorous new life that would help her struggling family. Three weeks after meeting Epstein at a Cape Town restaurant alongside former US President Bill Clinton, actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker, she boarded a flight to New York on her first trip abroad.

Within hours of landing she was driven to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and put on Epstein’s private jet bound for the Caribbean. Ms Bryant said: “He patted the chair next to him and I went and sat there. As the plane took off, he started forcibly touching me in between my legs.

“I just freaked out. I suddenly realised — oh my God, my family aren’t going to see me again. These people might kill me.”

The women who had recruited her in Cape Town laughed as she panicked. Bryant said: “It was like I was handcuffed invisibly. Invisible chains is a good way to put it.”

She was flown to one of Epstein’s Caribbean islands by helicopter. Her passport was taken and there was no way off. Ms Bryant said: “I’m not strong enough to swim away.” Over the following days and weeks Epstein raped her repeatedly, summoning her to his room after meals while he otherwise “worked”.

Ms Bryant spent hours alone by the pool or reading. She found disposable cameras and took photographs that swing between beaming smiles with other young women and haunting images of isolation.

She was never passed to other men, she said, but remained trapped by the psychological grip Epstein exerted.

Even after being returned to Cape Town she continued to fly, at his arrangement, to his properties in New York, Palm Beach, Paris and New Mexico, where she met girls from Brazil, Romania, France and Spain. She never told her family what had happened until after Epstein’s death in 2019.

Emails from the Epstein files show young women were still being shuttled from Cape Town to London, Atlanta and New York as late as 2018. 

When the latest US court files were released, Ms Bryant’s own unredacted emails to Epstein were published. They show her expressing support for him ahead of his 2008 plea deal and continuing contact until 2017.

Ms Bryant said: “Whenever I sent emails, it was always when I had been drinking or when I was having a bit of a breakdown. I always felt like he was watching me. The man had a terrible grip on my mind.”

Today Ms Bryant says she is still piecing together the scale of Epstein’s operation while battling the constant reminders of her abuser.

She explained: “I look on Facebook, I see Epstein’s face. I look on X, I see Epstein’s face. I look at the news, there it is again. There are times when it’s made me feel physically ill.”