Briton proud of high-class agency

By Caroline Wyatt BBC correspondent in Paris

The receptionist at the information desk at the Palais de Justice, Paris central court, looked up wearily as we asked where Margaret MacDonald was being tried.

Margaret Macdonald told the court she ran a legitimate escort agency

"The English Madam case?" she asked, with a raised eyebrow. "Courtroom 14".

The marble-floored corridor outside courtroom 14 at the Palais de Justice was unusually full.

At least 20 journalists from London were waiting to find out whether Margaret MacDonald, the 43-year-old convent-educated British woman accused of running an international ring of high class call-girls and gigolos, would spill the beans on famous clients.

We packed into the small courtroom, where the 65 spaces for spectators were soon filled with journalists and friends of Ms MacDonald.

Most were attractive young women, including Axelle Guerin, a stunning brunette who used to work for Ms MacDonald as an escort girl, but who now describes herself as a friend, there to offer moral support.

I ran a very high class escort agency Margaret MacDonald

"Being an escort can mean many things," she told me archly yesterday, "but Margaret NEVER asked me to have sex with clients.

"Just to be nice, be pretty, and the clients were very respectable, wealthy men."

There was a hush as Ms MacDonald entered court - as composed and calm as she had been on the first day, looking thinner and older than the most recent photos printed in the newspapers would suggest.

Difficult prison conditions

Her waist-length brown hair is flecked heavily with grey, her thinner frame dressed simply in a long-sleeved white T-shirt and pale jeans.

She looked tanned but tired after 16 months in custody in a prison outside Paris, where the food is apparently not to the inmates' taste and conditions are difficult.

At least, Ms Guerin told me, Margaret had not had to share a cell.

But for all those privations, Ms MacDonald was clearly in combative mode.

The prosecutor (a French woman of a similar age to Ms MacDonald, also brunette, wearing bright red lipstick) read out a litany of allegations, accusing the British woman of running a high class prostitution ring across Europe, hiring out the services of up to 500 women and men for up to £600 an hour.

Proud of agency

The evidence against her included a personal diary filled with business calculations, as well as bills, credit cards, a laptop computer and a host of mobile phones.

Ms MacDonald was not taking these allegations lying down.

When her turn came to respond, she replied in fluent, slightly-accented French.

Being an escort can mean many things, but Margaret NEVER asked me to have sex with clients. Axelle Guerin Former employee of Margaret MacDonald

"You were proud of your agency", the prosecutor had said.

"Yes," said Ms MacDonald, "I ran a very high class escort agency".

She told the court she was a well-qualified businesswoman, with two degrees and specialised in international marketing.

Instructions for girls

She spoke eight languages fluently and had been learning Russian in prison.

She had, she said, employed only the classiest girls.

All were given a list of instructions, seized by police from her home in Milan: dress elegantly, be nice to clients, shower often and do not smoke.

But her escorts, she insisted, were not prostitutes.

Clients were charged steep prices for the girls' company, nothing more.

The agency's cut (30 - 40% according to the prosecution) was to cover her sizeable expenses - travel across Europe, hotels, taxis, and for her meetings to select suitable girls, ones she found "sympathetic".

Consenting adults

What happened later on, after the girls had met their clients and had a good meal and a few drinks was entirely up to the two consenting adults.

Ms MacDonald raised sniggers from onlookers when she told the judge that she was not naive.

"Men and women in that situation, in a hotel room, do sometimes have sex," she said.

The prosecution asked what would happen if the girl didn't want sex.

"Speaking from my own experience as an escort," Ms MacDonald said that once, while working in Germany, she had feigned a headache.

In that case, she said (rather like in a restaurant) the man would have to pay "only for what he'd consumed".

The problem for Ms Macdonald is that in France, running an escort agency is illegal, though it carries a maximum sentence far shorter than the 10 years in prison maximum for pimping.

Income 'up and down'

Ms MacDonald says that as a businesswoman, she saw a gap in the market in France for something classy, while insisting that her business brought in far less money than the prosecution alleges.

Her income was "up and down", she said - sometimes no calls came for her girls, sometimes too many to cater for.

The court will deliver its verdict in a few week's time.

The main question is whether the judge will be convinced that Ms MacDonald was either ignorant of her employees' alleged sexual activities, or whether they were part of the package sold to her wealthy clients in advance, therefore making the British "madam" guilty of pimping and living off immoral earnings.

The prosecution has asked for a sentence of six years' imprisonment.