Mr Parker Bowles, who was 24 at the time, was caught in the newspaper sting offering to supply cocaine to “a society girl”. The woman is one of the accusers relied upon by New York prosecutors in the case against Ms Maxwell.

The sting operation on Mr Parker Bowles caused a furore at the time it was published in 1999, and was splashed across five pages in the News of the World.

The Telegraph has established that the woman was approached by the tabloid because she knew Mr Parker Bowles at the time. 

She agreed to assist the newspaper, which secretly recorded Mr Parker Bowles offering to obtain cocaine or other drugs for the woman. He also told her: “I did a line with someone I found last night,” and then offered to get her “gear [cocaine] or weed”.

The interaction took place during the Cannes Film Festival where Mr Parker Bowles was working as a publicist. He declined to comment in the story’s aftermath, but a friend said at the time: “He is very sorry about all this and humbled by it”, while the Prince of Wales is said to have been “fairly cross” but offered him full support.

Mr Parker Bowles, now 46, has gone on to establish himself as one of Britain’s most successful food writers and critics.

Defence plans ‘to impeach alleged victims’

The court case is expected to run for several weeks, meaning Ms Maxwell, whose birthday is on Christmas Day, will turn 60 in a Brooklyn jail where she is being held on remand. Both sides, defence and prosecution, are currently engaged in wrangling over the selection of jurors with the trial itself due to begin on November 29.

At a hearing last week, Mr Pagliuca told Alison Nathan, the judge: “The defence plans to impeach the alleged victims on their failure to disclose any abuse earlier, and will also look at previous substance abuse.”

Ms Maxwell’s lawyers have fought to bar Lisa Rocchio, the US government’s expert witness and a clinical psychologist with expertise in traumatic stress, who explained to the court why some victims delay reporting abuse.

Judge Nathan is set to decide in Tuesday’s final pre-trial hearing whether the defence is allowed to bring up the victims’ past sexual history.

Ms Maxwell, who has been repeatedly denied bail, has complained of horrendous conditions in prison, having spent more than 500 days in custody since her arrest at a secret home she had purchased in New Hampshire in 2020, a year after Epstein’s suicide.