Surveillance video from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s first suspected suicide attempt was destroyed by accident, prosecutors say. US prosecutors say the jail mistakenly saved footage from the wrong cell.

Epstein, a convicted sex offender, first tried to kill himself in July last year, then hanged himself in jail in August while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. He had pleaded not guilty to abusing dozens of girls, some as young as 14.

Soon after Epstein’s death, in August, two of the CCTV cameras outside his cell had malfunctioned and were being examined by the FBI, US media reported. Epstein was found semi-conscious in his prison cell with injuries to his neck on 25 July. After this incident, he was placed on suicide watch.

Eventually, Epstein was moved to a different cell, where he died on 10 August. Two prison guards have since been accused of failing to check on him during this time and falsifying records to say that they had. There have been ongoing questions over the July recording, which was initially deemed missing and then was said to have been located by jail staff.(BBC)…[+]