Quote:Ghislaine Maxwell will ask to be transferred to a British prison to serve the bulk of her sentence for child sex trafficking, The Mail on Sunday understands.

The former socialite, who faces up to 55 years in jail after being convicted of procuring young girls for the late paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, will be sentenced on June 28.

Under US law, she will have to spend the first three years in an American prison, but can then apply to return to the UK to be closer to her family.

‘Ghislaine will apply to serve out the remainder of her sentence, whatever that may be, in the UK as soon as she is able,’ a source told The Mail on Sunday.

‘She wants to be in the UK to be closer to her family so she can have family visits. The prisons in Britain are far superior to those in the US and the Brits treat prisoners more humanely. The American system is a disgrace.

‘If she has to spend time in prison she would rather do it in the UK, where people are treated fairly and with a measure of decency.’

Maxwell was convicted in December of five counts of grooming and procuring underage girls for Epstein, who was found hanged in his prison cell in 2019.

For almost two years since her arrest in July 2020, she had been kept in solitary confinement at the maximum-security Metropolitan Detention Center in New York, because officials feared she would kill herself before her trial, but last month she was moved into an area with 40 other inmates.

Maxwell’s brother Ian, 66, revealed yesterday that he was prevented from visiting the 60-year-old after the prison went into lockdown following a fight. It remains in lockdown this weekend.