Peter Mandelson’s critics should remember that he is “still a human being”, Cherie Blair has said in an interview.

Blair added that the former Labour minister was “entitled to a fair trial” after he was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. He denies criminal wrongdoing and has been released under investigation.

Lord Mandelson, alongside Blair’s husband and former prime minister, Tony, was one of the driving forces behind New Labour and served in various government roles.

He was sacked as Britain’s US ambassador last year after it emerged that he had stayed in touch with the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after his first conviction in 2008.

Documents released by the US justice department earlier this year revealed that Mandelson had passed confidential government information on to the financier at the height of the global financial crisis. At that time, Mandelson was serving as business secretary under Tony Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown.

Speaking to Times Radio, Cherie Blair said: “I feel very sad that it’s come to this. I think … when anyone’s life falls apart, we should remember that there’s still a human being. And … of course, we should also remember that they’re entitled to a fair trial.”

She added: “In the media, and particularly today with social media, too many people forget that the people that they’re talking about are human beings with feelings and can be hurt.”

The Epstein files revealed that Mandelson arranged a meeting between Epstein and Tony Blair when the latter was still serving as prime minister.

However, Cherie Blair said. “I don’t really think Tony has been drawn into this. I mean, the prime minister meets millions of people all the time. And in fact, it was, I think, Bill Clinton who asked him to meet with Epstein.”

Cherie Blair said she had been mentioned in the files, adding: “I happened to be at a women’s event and his girlfriend was there and he then recounts this. It just shows what [Epstein] was doing … he met millions of people and he used them in order to make himself seem important.”

She criticised coverage of the files, arguing that reporting on them had been too focused on “important men” as opposed to the women and girls who had been subject to Epstein’s abuse.

“This is about individual women who were trafficked, who were abused, who were groomed,” she said. “Sometimes what worries me about the Epstein files is it all becomes about the important men … this should be about what happened to those women and girls, including the young girls.”