Brothel madam is told to give up £2m earnings

A London brothel madam was ordered yesterday to pay more than £2m she had earned from "saunas" where hundreds of men paid for sex every week.

A London brothel madam was ordered yesterday to pay more than £2m she had earned from "saunas" where hundreds of men paid for sex every week.

Josie Daly, 64, appeared to live respectably in a Victorian villa in north London, coming and going in a white chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. But vice officers discovered she was earning a fortune from four saunas that operated as brothels for British, East European and Far Eastern prostitutes.

On some nights undercover officers counted as many as 100 men paying £50 a time visiting the pensioner's north London saunas. Only two of them have a steam room.

At a previous hearing Daly pleaded guilty to three counts of controlling prostitution for gain covering a period from January 1996 to December 1997, although she is believed to have been running the brothels since the early 1990s.

When police arrested her they found she had 10 bank accounts, and £104,000 was found in a bedroom at her home in Hornsey. Half the bank accounts held five-figure balances of up to £90,000. She also owned property, including a hotel and house in the area.

Fining her £3,000, ordering her to pay £50,000 costs and confiscating a further £2m in assets, Judge Barrington Black told the defendant, who was brought into Harrow Crown Court in London in a wheelchair, that in determining the right punishment for her he had taken a number of matters into account, including her ill health. But he said: "I have misgivings as to the full extent of your incapacity."

He said the court accepted that about one-third of her £3m income during 1996 and 1997 was legitimate.

He warned her that a five-year sentence would be imposed if the £2m was not paid within a year.

After the case Daly said: "I am afraid I will have to retire now. I can't start again. I am too old. What a shame..."