Two men dominated the private life of Ghislaine Maxwell while they lived and then provoked intense public interest in her after their sudden, shocking deaths.

When her father, Robert Maxwell, the newspaper proprietor, died at sea in 1991, a traumatised Ghislaine flew to Tenerife where his yacht was docked. Although the official verdict was that his death was accidental, the discovery of a massive black hole at the heart of his finances boosted theories that he had killed himself or had been murdered. Ghislaine would later come to believe in foul play and escaped the turmoil to build a new life in New York.

The apparent suicide of her erstwhile boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier, in a New York jail cell also brought