The former Marlborough College student Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of recruiting and trafficking young girls to be sexually abused by the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The 60-year-old, who attended the prestigious school in the late seventies, was found guilty on five of the six counts she faced - including the most serious charge, that of sex trafficking a minor. The verdict was reached after five full days of deliberation by a 12-person jury in New York.

It means the British socialite who went to the college to do her A-levels, studying languages and modern history as a sixth-former, could spend the rest of her life behind bars. A date for Maxwell's sentencing has not yet been set.

The verdict followed a month-long trial that featured testimony from four women who described being abused by Epstein between 1994 and 2004.

Maxwell showed no visible sign of emotion as the verdict was read out yesterday, only pouring herself a glass of water which she sipped from twice.

Shortly after the verdict, her legal team said they were already working on an appeal. "We firmly believe in Ghislaine's innocence," her lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, told reporters.

Marlborough was the fourth school Maxwell attended. Her first years of schooling were at Oxford High School for Girls in North Oxford. At the age of nine, she went to Edgarley Hall boarding school in Somerset, but she was back in Oxford at 13 to attend Headington Girls’ School, where she was “very sporty at tennis, hockey and athletics”.

Ms Maxwell continued her enthusiasm for sport at the £40,000 a year Marlborough College, where she reportedly played football in midfield for a girls’ team known as The Grannies.