Ghislaine Maxwell's private emails have been hacked by cyber criminals in a new twist in the scandal surrounding Prince Andrew's friendship with a convicted paedophile. The British heiress was targeted after she was publicly accused of procuring young girls for Jeffrey Epstein, legal papers seen by The Telegraph reveal. The security breach raises the prospect that emails between Ms Maxwell and prominent individuals including the Duke of York could be made public, or sold to the highest bidder. Ms Maxwell has barely been seen in public since August, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unsealed allegations that she conspired with Epstein to recruit and groom underage girls. Her US lawyers are currently battling the release of around 8,600 further documents from the same civil case, said to contain damaging new sex claims about Epstein's vast network of celebrity friends. In December it was revealed that Ms Maxwell exchanged emails with Prince Andrew in 2015 about Virginia Giuffre, who accuses the Duke of having sex with her three times when she was aged 17. He has always emphatically denied the allegations. A US judge will decide in the coming weeks whether to unseal the new evidence about Epstein's alleged crimes. The documents include depositions from 29 people, including a number of new witnesses and reportedly Epstein himself. The Duke of York's name appears in the evidence along with a number of prominent politicians and businessmen.