A BBC News interview with a lawyer accused of the sexual abuse of a minor after Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction “did not meet the BBC’s editorial standards”, the corporation has said. The broadcaster has been inundated with complaints about the interview with Alan Dershowitz, which was broadcast on the BBC News channel shortly after Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking in a New York court on Wednesday. Dershowitz, who was previously Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer, has been accused of sexual abuse by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who has made similar claims against Prince Andrew. Both men deny the allegations. When interviewed on the BBC News channel on Wednesday, Dershowitz was introduced simply as a “constitutional lawyer”. He was then allowed to attack Giuffre’s credibility, without challenge from the presenter. A BBC spokesperson said on Thursday that Dershowitz “was not a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst, and we did not make the relevant background clear to our audience. We will look into how this happened.” In the interview, Dershowitz congratulated the prosecution in the Maxwell case for not calling Giuffre as a witness, “because they ultimately didn’t believe she was telling the truth and they didn’t believe a jury would believe her and they were right in doing so”. The BBC did not mention that Dershowitz and Giuffre are locked in lawsuits over the veracity of her claims that he was part of a group of powerful men to whom Epstein offered her for sex. She sued him for defamation after he called her a liar, and he countersued claiming she was making false claims about him as part of a plan to extort money from a far wealthier member of Epstein’s circle. The Labour MP Nadia Whittome tweeted: “Alan Dershowitz, who was accused of the same crimes as Prince Andrew, is on the BBC trying to silence victims following Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction. I can’t believe this needs to be said but the BBC should not give a platform to people accused of child sexual abuse.” She added: “We have a responsibility to believe people when they disclose sexual abuse and to create conditions in which they can in the first place. All details of Epstein’s network should be published and all victims/survivors are owed justice. This is clearly the tip of the iceberg.” Sarah Churchwell, an American literature professor from the University of London, tweeted: “People have taken this thread as an opp to bash the BBC, so let me be clear I’m a fan and a beneficiary of brilliant people at @BBCNews. But this – Dershowitz as ‘constitutional lawyer’ without explaining his screaming conflicts of interest – is not OK.” Adam Wagner, a human rights barrister, said the interview represented a “huge error by the BBC” and that all the corporation had to do was search Dershowitz’s name on Google to see that he was not an appropriate guest. Caoilfhionn Gallagher, a coroner and human rights lawyer, said she was “shocked” and described the decision to interview him as “utterly bizarre”. The BBC statement said: “The interview with Alan Dershowitz after the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict did not meet the BBC’s editorial standards, as Mr Dershowitz was not a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst, and we did not make the relevant background clear to our audience. We will look into how this happened.”