Help arrived for Conrad Black last week from an unexpected quarter. All eyes were initially on the former owner of The Daily Telegraph and his wife, Barbara Amiel, as they arrived at a federal courthouse in Chicago to begin his trial on charges of corporate fraud — but it was his daughter, Alana, who stole the show.

Rarely seen with her father in public, the 24-year-old Canadian daughter of Lord Black of Crossharbour turned up in what may prove to be a valuable supporting role as the trial starts in earnest tomorrow after two days of jury selection last week.

With her willowy good looks and public displays of affection for her father, Alana Black caused speculation in media and legal circles that her presence would help to soften her father’s plutocratic image with a Chicago jury that is expected to be largely blue collar.

“She’s confident and charming, but she doesn’t have her father’s swagger,” noted Peter Worthington, a Canadian columnist covering the trial. “It seems like she can’t help but be smiling and friendly.” She may also have a financial stake in the outcome of what is likely to prove a tumultuous trial on prosecution charges that Black looted $83m (£42.7m) from Hollinger International, his former company, to finance a lifestyle of reckless extravagance.

The romantic hero who has run out of plots

Conrad Black, who once dressed up as Cardinal Richelieu, faces the prospect of donning an orange prison jumpsuit instead

Multimedia

• Lord Black: a life in pictures

Background

• Lord Black stays silent in defence

• The face: Black Narcissus

• Black 'was $60m robber in suit and tie'

• Black asked Trump to sing his praises

• Daughter steals show in Black’s trial

Related Internet Links

• Analysis, video and accusations from the Lord Black trial

Alana, who was dubbed “Baby Black” by a Canadian magazine, was the middle of three children born to Black and his first wife, Shirley, who later changed her name to Joanna. The couple divorced in 1992.

Despite reports that the now adult children did not get on well with Amiel, there was no sign of friction last week as the family drove away from the courthouse with Alana sitting between her father and stepmother.

Alana was the only one smiling, but her experience of the case so far has scarcely been a happy one. Quite apart from the prospect that her father could go to jail for up to 101 years if he is found guilty of fraud, racketeering, money laundering and obstruction of justice, at least part of her inheritance may be threatened if the US government moves to confiscate Black’s assets.

It emerged during pretrial wrangling last year that Alana and her brothers, Jonathan and James, had a part share of the £18m mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, that Black had offered as security for the $20m bail that has so far kept him out of jail.

Jonathan Black, a 29-year-old model, has lived in California and Japan and has appeared on the pages of Maxim and Italian Vogue magazines. He has not been seen in Chicago; neither has James, 21, who is reportedly studying at Concordia University in Montreal.

Alana worked briefly as an intern on a Canadian magazine once owned by her father, but none of the children is known to have pursued a corporate career.

At one point last June, the US prosecutors threatened to revoke Black’s bail after a row over the value of his Florida property and how much of the proceeds of any sale would be left over for the US government. The Canadian government had already obtained a court order seeking at least $14m in allegedly unpaid taxes which it said should come from the sale of the house.

It also emerged that Black had included his wife and three children in a complex structure that gave all of them part-ownership of the property through his private company, Conrad Black Capital. According to court documents, Amiel had a stake worth £6.57m and the three children between them shared another £6.57m.

Amy St Eve, the Chicago trial judge, eventually accepted the bail arrangements but, according to court papers, Amiel and the three children agreed to possible forfeiture of their holdings as part of Black’s bail conditions.

If Black is found guilty, the US government is expected to seize the house, which is reportedly for sale.

Alana may also help to draw attention from Amiel, whose addiction to luxurious excess is in danger of dominating the trial. The woman who famously once boasted that “I have an extravagance that knows no bounds” was keeping an uncharacteristically low profile, seemingly as part of a defence strategy to avoid any sign of conspicuous consumption that might antagonise the jury.

Amiel, 66, was widely judged last week to have played the part of a demure and loyal wife to perfection, turning up for court in outfits more Mary Magdalene than Marie Antoinette.

Yet the couple’s calm and confident demeanour must conceal private torment. Whatever the Blacks truly feel about Conrad’s chances of staying out of jail, both must be quaking at the prospect that up to 11,000 of their e-mails to each other - many believed to contain explicit sexual references - may be made public by the court.

St Eve has yet to rule on a prosecution request to accept the e-mails as evidence that Black was aware of his wife’s spending habits, which allegedly included handbags, jogging attire, exercise equipment, a leather briefcase and even stereo equipment for their New York flat, all charged to Hollinger accounts.

Black’s lawyers have argued that under US law wives cannot give evidence against their husbands and that the e-mails should be excluded from the trial.

In one respect prosecutors may have misjudged the impact that the e-mails may have. Several Canadian commentators have noted that not many ordinary citizens can identify with the Blacks’ champagne and caviar lifestyle; but a great many married couples write deeply embarrassing things to each other and may sympathise with the Blacks’ attempts to stop their billets doux becoming public.

When Black finally comes before the jury tomorrow, one of his few sources of comfort and solace in the courtroom may prove to be his daughter. He wrote of Alana in his 1993 autobiography: “No little girl could ever give a doting father more pleasure than she has always done.”

Times Recommends

• Congo's rangers risk their lives to guard gorillas
• Pearl farming in China losing its lustre
• Axl Rose mystery as album arrives at last