Suspicious teacher exposes double life of girl, 15, earning £100,000 a year as an upmarket prostitute



The schoolgirl earned almost £100,000 a year working as a prostitute (file picture)

A 15-year-old schoolgirl earned almost £100,000 a year working as a high-class prostitute, it was revealed yesterday.



By day the teenager attended classes but at night she was regularly paid hundreds of pounds for sex.



The girl, who cannot be identified because of her age, is believed to have been working for an escort agency based in Newcastle.



She lied about her age before going on to earn £1,700 a week, meeting dozens of men on school nights and at the weekend.



Her double life was exposed in November when a suspicious teacher searched her schoolbag and found condoms, a card with the name of her pimp and details of the agency she worked for.



The school alerted police and officers later searched the £200,000 family home in South Tyneside, finding £8,060 in cash hidden in the loft, a court heard.



Detectives believe she was paid £14,000 in just two months but have not been able to recover the remaining £6,000.



Her parents, aged 44 and 46, were originally arrested on suspicion of inciting child prostitution but have since been released without charge.



The £8,000 found by police was confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act during a brief hearing at South Tyneside Magistrates' Court on February 13.



Asa Anderson, from Northumbria Police, told the court: 'The money was seized after police received a phone call from a school where a teacher found a pupil's bag. The bag was found containing certain items.'



The girl, from Eastern Europe, is now being cared for by child protection agencies.

She is understood to have arrived in the UK with her mother in the past few years.



'Prostitute': The 15-year-old girl, who had lied about her age, is believed to have made more than £1,700 every weekend working for an escort agency

Police sources said she looked older than 15 and was able to dupe the escort agency into believing she was 18. The identity of the agency involved has not been revealed and police are still investigating.

Had she not been caught she would have gone on to earn £84,000 in a single year.

And police believe her earning potential would have risen over £100,000 through entertaining more clients as she grew older.



A report published by Save the Children in 2007 claimed there were approximately 5,000 child prostitutes in the UK - 75 per cent of them girls.



They and other charities have repeatedly urged the Government to do more to crackdown on the rising number of child sex slaves in the UK and Western Europe.



Last night Michelle Elliott, from children's charity Kidscape, said: 'This is absolutely shocking. I feel desperately sorry for the girl involved. She is, like the others, a victim.



'As a parent you would think that you would know if your daughter was working as a prostitute or not. Clearly, this young girl managed to hide this from her parents very well.'



She added: 'It does make you wonder what her motivation was for selling herself. Was it to get nice things? Was it to get enough money to leave home?



'Was it because she was abused herself as many prostitutes have been? She would clearly have continued working as an escort had she not been caught. At such a young age she thinks that selling herself is the way to get fame, fortune and love.



'There are probably many more cases out there like this one.'



Wendy Shepherd, children's service manager for Barnardo's Sexual Exploitation Children Outreach Services, said many young children are being abused.



'It is not unusual that young people are coerced and groomed into sexually exploitative relationships and they don't always understand fully what is happening,' she said.