A COUPLE who planned to rob a punter who had gone to a brothel for a “massage”

picked on the wrong target – a burly soldier fresh from basic training.

Bungling pair Joanne Metcalfe and Alexander Millar had no idea they were luring a fitness fanatic and fighting machine to her parlour in an upstairs flat in Darlington.

The petite prostitute and her teenage accomplice – armed with a knife and a heavy telescopic baton – proved to be no match for the 26-year-old recruit.

He battered Millar into submission and left 29-year-old Metcalfe in tears on her bed after turning the tables on their plot to attack him and steal his money.

Metcalfe made a tearful early-morning 999 call, claiming a madman had burst into her home and attacked her friend with “a pole” – and the soldier was arrested.

Officers arrived at the flat and found 17-year-old Millar cowering on the floor, covered in blood, and his intended victim naked, holding the weapons.

Protesting at his detention, the soldier – based at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire – told police: “I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve been scammed. I got her number from the newspaper.”

The soldier said he saved the number from a personal ad in a national tabloid last summer, and responded to it one day after having a few drinks with colleagues.

He said he had been getting a massage from a woman, who called herself Nicole, when a man burst in, screaming: “What you doing with my f*****g girlfriend?”

He told police he felt a knife being pressed against his throat, so he head-butted him, then noticed he had a cosh in his other hand and was refusing to put them down.

“I grabbed him around the throat, got the baton and told him to drop the knife,” he told police.

“The lad said he would kill me, and I was worried he might stab me.

“I hit him with the baton two times on the arm and then on the body, and I was shouting ‘drop it’. He then began to cry and sob, and I told him to move towards the wall.”

When the soldier went to pick up the knife, he found a second blade beside it on the floor, and gathered up all the weapons to make sure he was not harmed.

After ordering the now-hysterical Metcalfe to retrieve his discarded clothes, he realised his wallet and mobile telephone were missing from the pockets of his jeans.

He told police that he said to the stunned pair: “Your scam hasn’t worked . . . and it can be brought to an end easily if you return my property.”

His version of events from the night of August 1 was believed, and police began questioning Metcalfe and Millar on suspicion of conspiring to rob.

The pair were released on bail, but within two months Metcalfe was at it again – this time with a different fall-guy – advertising her services in a national newspaper.

A 68-year-old man called the number next to the advertisement saying “Darlington, slim and sexy” on October 9, and made an appointment at the parlour for two days later.

The pensioner was met by a bikini-clad woman calling herself Nicole, who offered him “full personal” for £60 and led him to the bedroom.

After undressing, he was lying face down on the bed when a man burst into the room, claiming to be the woman’s husband, yelling: “Get out or I’ll cut your knackers off.”

The man was ordered to leave, but when he later realised his wallet and £180 was missing, he returned to the flat to confront the pair, but they denied any knowledge of it.

Metcalfe, of Orchard Road, Darlington, has since admitted charges of conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to steal, while Millar, of Greenbank Road, also Darlington, admitted conspiracy to rob.

The suspected co-conspirator in the second incident has gone on the run and has not been traced by the police.

Detectives say they are still looking for him.

Metcalfe and Millar are expected to be sentenced at the end of this month once background reports have been prepared on them by Probation Service officials.

It is understood that in written basis of pleas put before Teesside Crown Court, they each blame the other for being the main instigator of the bungled plot.

Metcalfe said yesterday that she had been working briefly as a prostitute and had been sharing earnings with a pimp, whose idea it was to stage the robbery.

Her barrister, Richard Herrmann, said Millar was placed with her by the pimp, and she had no idea he was planning to arm himself with such lethal weapons.