A PROSTITUTE who plotted to steal from punters who visited her brothel sobbed yesterday as she was locked up for three years.

An accomplice in one of the botched plans was sent to a young offenders’ institution for 18 months.

Joanne Metcalfe and Alexander Millar appeared at Teesside Crown Court to be sentenced for conspiracy to rob on August 1, last year.

They hatched a plan to attack a man who had responded to a personal advert in a national newspaper saying “slim, sexy, Darlington”.

A court heard the pair had no idea they were luring a soldier, fresh from basic training, to Metcalfe’s flat in the town.

As the naked squaddie was getting a massage, Millar, 17, burst into the room screaming “What you doing with my f***ing girlfriend?”

The teenager was armed with an asp and a knife, but refused to drop the blade despite being head-butted and repeatedly hit.

He eventually succumbed to the 26-year-old soldier’s retaliation, gave up the weapon and began to cry, the court was told.

But the victim was arrested when Metcalfe called police and said a madman had burst into her home and attacked her friend.

Police believed the soldier’s story about being having his wallet and mobile phone stolen, and arrested the pair.

Metcalfe, 30, was given bail, but within a month had recruited another accomplice to try the same trick.

A 68-year-old man called the number next to the advert on October 9 and made an appointment at the parlour.

He was met by a bikini-clad woman calling herself Nicole who offered him “full personal”

for £60.

After undressing, he was lying face down on the bed when a man burst into the room, claiming to be the woman’s husband.

Paul Abrahams, prosecuting, said he yelled: “Get out or I’ll cut your knackers off.”

The victim later realised £180 was missing, but was told he would be accused of rape if he went to the police.

Richard Herrmann, for Metcalfe, of Orchard Road, Darlington, said she was at the lowest point in her life when she turned to prostitution to fund her drug habit.

Millar, of Greenbank Road, Darlington, was said to have been “immature and prone to manipulation”.

His barrister, Shaun Dryden, said: “The wrong target was picked on. For his troubles, this defendant, in this rather misconceived scheme, got a severe beating.”

Judge Les Spittle said the soldier could not be criticised for putting Millar in hospital.

“There are many who will say you got no more than you deserved,” he said. “He did what he had to do.”

Metcalfe also admitted conspiracy to steal.