The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell

Title: The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell
Author: Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Shortlist: Non-Fiction

I understand – and sympathise with – the feeling you might have that you already know the Jeffrey Epstein story. But I am not here to tell you a story about Jeffrey Epstein, or even Ghislaine Maxwell. I am here to tell you the stories of these women, many of whom have never spoken at length before, and about the real impact of sexual trauma on their lives.

In December 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors and is now serving 20 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.

Centering 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.

Judges’ report

With sobering nuance, Lucia Osborne-Crowley positions herself in The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell as a steadfast translator of some of society's most injurious and corrupting ills. By tracking the lives of four of Jeffery Epstein and Maxwell’s victims in rich and sweeping detail, Osborne-Crowley recasts a popularised story of abuse, and reveals its sodden tendrils, the ones she insists ought to matter instead. The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell is a journalistic feat, which shines a light on the elaborate woes of being a bystander, as well as reckoning with one's own victimisation through the corrosive legal procedures that we expect to uphold justice.

Extract

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About the Author

Photo by Sarah Hickson

Lucia Osborne-Crowley

VPLA book photography by Sarah Walker

The 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are proudly supported by the Victorian Government through the Community Support Fund and Creative Victoria.