In Room 270, the records management unit, on the second floor of an imposing granite and marble courthouse in lower Manhattan, 167 documents totaling more than 2,000 pages are being kept under lock and key.

But they are about to be unsealed and made public - making a host of important people around the world, including celebrities, politicians and royals, very nervous.

The files contain explosive allegations in the case of Giuffre v Maxwell, in which Virginia Giuffre, a woman who claims to have been Jeffrey Epstein's teenage "sex slave", sued Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and the billionaire's former girlfriend, for defamation.

The case was settled in May 2017 on the eve of the trial but the details were not disclosed and the final judgment and supporting documents were sealed, with the court noting the "highly sensitive nature of the underlying allegations."

According to other court documents that have been published, Ms Giuffre has made allegations of sexual abuse against "numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well‐known Prime Minister, and other world leaders."

An appeal to unseal the rest of the documents was launched by the Miami Herald newspaper, which has spearheaded media investigations into Epstein. It was rejected three times.