PARIS: A former British convent schoolgirl was jailed for four years yesterday for running an international prostitution ring in Paris.
On her 44th birthday, Margaret MacDonald was convicted by a court in the French capital of "aggravated procuring" for the purposes of prostitution. She was also fined €150,000.
Judge Jacqueline Rebeyrotte ruled that she had run a network of escort girls who charged hundreds of euros an hour.
Following the ruling, her lawyer, Mr Emanuel Marsigny, said he was concerned for the well-being of his client, who has already served 17 months of her sentence, having been kept in a Paris jail since her arrest in May last year.
He said: "Margaret is very shocked and disappointed. I am worried for her health because she is very fragile psychologically.
"I hope she will be able to get through this ordeal alone."
Having started working as an escort girl herself, McDonald set up her own call girl business in the late 1990s and began to operate in several European countries, Israel and the US.
She was arrested at a Paris hotel near the Champs Elysées, where investigators said they found a laptop containing the names of hundreds of prostitutes.
She advertised her business on the Internet and in the International Herald Tribune, giving phone numbers in Switzerland, Italy and Germany.
Clients, who reportedly included high-profile celebrities, would pay about €1,000 an hour, of which MacDonald pocketed roughly 40 per cent.