POLICE swooped on a brothel containing Chinese prostitutes after neighbours called a sex line number and heard the phone next door ringing.

Teesside Crown Court heard that undercover officers then arranged to visit the premises in Middlesbrough, where they were confronted by two scantily clad women.

Yesterday, Kai Fat Ho, who was running the brothel, in the Linthorpe area of the town, was jailed for six months.

Ho, 46, of Appleby House, Thornaby, had previously admitted charges of living wholly or in part off the earnings of prostitution and keeping a brothel between March 23 and April 1.

Peter Johnson, prosecuting, said a neighbour had become suspicious of two Chinese women at the property in Rockcliffe Road and, on one occasion, heard a female voice discussing the price of sex.

Her boyfriend noticed a number in the Daily Sport under the headline Oriental Lady, which they called and discovered the phone next door was ringing.

Mr Johnson said that when police raided the brothel, they also found two Chinese men, whose job it was to cook and look after the prostitutes, and various items such as condoms and pornographic videos.

Inquiries were made to find who the tenant of the property was, and Ho was traced to an address in Redcar, Teesside, where police found him hiding in a wardrobe.

When interviewed, Ho said he was responsible for paying the rent and paying for condoms and furnishings, and took 40 per cent of the prostitutes' £400 daily earnings.

Robin Turton, for Ho, said he had got involved in a stupid and foolish business to supplement his pay as a cook and repay debts.

He said: "This is not a case where coercion was a factor, and the two women involved entered into an arrangement freely for their own benefit."

Judge Peter Fox told Ho: "Here in Middlesbrough the sex industry is becoming a matter of very great concern and the sentence I pass on you has to be one of immediate imprisonment to reflect that."

He ordered that £2,000 discovered by police during the inquiry should be forfeited.