Rumours of sordid sex tapes have dogged those who moved in Jeffrey Epstein’s social orbit for years.

The disgraced financier is said to have secretly recorded his high-profile associates having sex with young girls to use against them as blackmail.

Not one such tape has ever been produced. However, on Monday, the murky claims re-emerged in the form of a series of emails sent by Sarah Ransome, one of Epstein’s victims, to a friend.

The messages were included in the latest tranche of documents released by a US court in connection with a 2015 defamation claim brought by Virginia Giuffre, who was trafficked by Epstein as a teenager, against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.

In them, Ms Ransome alleged that Epstein secretly recorded the Duke of York, Bill Clinton and Richard Branson having sex.

The tapes, which she claimed “clearly” identified the men in question, were then copied, backed up on several USB sticks and sent to “various locations throughout Europe”, she said.

While there is little doubt that Ms Ransome was one of Epstein’s victims, the publication of such “outrageous” allegations immediately triggered strongly worded denials.

Rather than form part of Ms Giuffre’s claim against Maxwell, as one might expect, they were lodged with the New York court in an effort to undermine her case.

The emails were included in a document lodged by a legal firm representing Epstein’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, in order to demonstrate that Ms Ransome “manifestly lacks credibility”.

In one, sent to her friend Maureen Callahan in October 2016, Ms Ransome wrote: “When my friend had sexual intercourse with Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson, sex tapes were, in fact, filmed on each separate occasion by Jeffery.

“Thank God she managed to get a hold of some footage of the filmed sex tapes, which clearly identify the faces of Clinton, Prince Andrew and Branson having sexual intercourse with her.”

She added: “Frustratingly enough, Epstein was not seen in any of the footage but he was clever like that! After two hours of trying to convince my friend to come forward with me, I eventually managed to persuade her to send me some of the video footage which she kept, implicating all three men mentioned above.

“I personally can confirm that I have, with my own two eyes, seen the evidence of these sexual acts…”

The Duke settled a civil claim with Ms Giuffre out of court in February 2022 and has vehemently denied wrongdoing.

A Virgin Group spokeswoman, speaking on behalf of Mr Branson, said: “In a New Yorker report published in 2019, Ransome admitted that she had ‘invented’ the tapes.

“We can confirm that Sarah Ransome’s claims are baseless and unfounded.”

In the New Yorker report, Ms Ransome said she had invented the tapes to try and bring attention to Epstein’s crimes and make him think she had “evidence that would come out if he tried to harm me”.

If nothing else, the emails point to the devastating impact that Epstein’s many years of abuse had on his victims.

Ms Ransome, who was born to British parents in South Africa and moved to Scotland when she was 14, was lured into Epstein’s web after travelling to New York to become a model.

The financier claimed he had connections at FIT, the New York fashion college, and would help her secure a much-coveted place to study there.

Epstein began abusing her in 2006 when she was 22. Needless to say, the college place never materialised.

In a deposition filed in 2017, Ms Ransome described how Maxwell “ran (Epstein’s) house like a brothel”, keeping various girls on rotation to give him “sexual massages” every day.

“When I was finished, another girl was called by Ghislaine,” she said. “And when they had finished, another girl was called.”

She said that when they were taken to Epstein’s Caribbean island, Little St James, the girls “tried to hide” so they would not get called.

But they were expected to spend their days in a main seating area by the pool. “We always had to be around. We weren’t allowed to go very far on the island.”

Epstein and Ghislaine also “bullied” her about her weight and tried to get her down to a 52kg goal. She attempted to flee the private island in waters teeming with sharks after being raped three times in a single day.

Eventually, she did manage to escape their clutches and attended Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial in November 2021, although she did not testify.

More recently, Ms Ransome’s friends have expressed concern for her mental wellbeing.

In her emails to Miss Callahan, she also made wild allegations about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, writing: “I will make sure that neither that evil bitch Hillary or that paedophile Trump gets elected.”

She said Mr Trump, the former US president, “liked flicking and sucking” her friend’s nipples “until they were raw”.

Ms Ransome wrote: “They looked incredibly painful as they were red and swollen and I remember wincing when I looked at them.

“I also know she had sexual relations with Trump at Jeffery’s NY mansion on regular occasions.”

Elsewhere, she said that she had “reached out to the Russians for help” after her emails were hacked and was going to “make sure that everyone on the goddamn planet see’s [sic] that footage and photo’s [sic] and will release them to Wiki leaks by Sunday”.

Ms Ransome also claimed that she had sex with Mr Dershowitz when she was 23, an allegation he has denied.

Her emails were included in a letter lodged with the court by Mr Dershowitz’s lawyers, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, in June 2017, that insisted such allegations were completely false.

The letter said: “Prior to this action, (Mr Dershowitz) had never heard of Ms Ransome. Her testimony was fabricated from whole cloth.

“Ms Ransome’s testimony also contains a slew of other incendiary claims concerning the sexual proclivities of Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and other prominent individuals.

“The emails are a necessary antidote to Ms Ransome’s deposition misstatements because they demonstrate she manifestly lacks credibility.”

In the event, Maxwell settled Ms Giuffre’s defamation case out of court in 2017.

Ms Ransome’s private emails would not have seen the light of day but for a successful legal challenge by the Miami Herald.

As a result, New York judge Loretta Preska ordered the unsealing of hundreds of documents relating to the case which are gradually being released this month.

For Prince Andrew, the move has simply served to highlight damaging claims he had hoped were firmly behind him.

One of the documents released on Monday concerns the claim he forced Ms Giuffre to have sex with him in a bath at Maxwell’s mews house in London in 2001.

Much like Ms Ransome’s emails, the claims are included in a bid to debunk the allegations rather than bolster them.

Philip Barden, Maxwell’s UK-based solicitor, said in his 2017 deposition: “She (Ms Giuffre) claimed she did have sex with Prince Andrew and that the sex occurred in what can only be described as a very small bathtub, too small for a man of Prince Andrew’s size to enjoy a bath in let alone sex.”

He said Ms Giuffre’s “story” alleging that the Duke had sex with her “caused a feeding frenzy for the press”, and called on the media to “cease and desist” from continuing to publish, saying they faced “higher damages for ignoring my clear warning” if they continued.

Mr Barden claimed Ms Giuffre’s story regarding the Duke had changed, leading to the “inescapable inference that she is a liar”.

Ms Giuffre told the BBC’s Panorama in 2019: “There was a bath and it started there and then led into the bedroom.”

She added: “It didn’t last very long, the whole entire procedure. It was disgusting. He wasn’t mean or anything but he got up and he said, ‘Thanks’, and walked out.”

The Duke has strenuously denied the allegations and has said he has no recollection of ever meeting Ms Giuffre.

The latest - unsubstantiated - claims regarding the existence of sex tapes are unlikely to break his resolve. But they will make yet more unpleasant reading at Buckingham Palace.