Computer link to 'call girl racket'

French detectives investigating the alleged multi-million pound sex empire of a British woman are expected to liaise with Scotland Yard over the activities of a computer based escort agency in London.

Margaret McDonald, a 43-yearold former teacher described as "well educated, sophisticated, quite beautiful but ruthless" is believed to have run one of Europe's biggest call girl rings.

Her arrest in Paris by the vice squad as she interviewed three "escort girls" came as a complete shock to her mother Matilda, a devout Roman Catholic who lives in a £750,000 house in Windsor. McDonald's father, who is dead, was a former RAF sergeant and successful businessman.

Her clients were said to be mainly wealthy Americans.

Scotland Yard detectives believe McDonald's £1,500-a-night call girl operation may be linked to a computer site - registered to an address in New Cavendish Street - and are preparing to hand over a dossier on its activities to the French. The site - the London-Milan Escort Service - has similar sites in Paris and Rome, where McDonald was also known to operate.

People interested in hiring the services of the girls are invited to contact a variety of mobile phone numbers that connect the caller to the girl's "personal secretary," variously called Laura, Victoria and Liz.

French police, who tracked McDonald's movements across Europe as she used a variety of aliases, will seek to ascertain if any of the five mobiles phones and seven extra sim cards McDonald was carrying relate to the numbers given on the computer site. She was was arrested by undercover detectives in her room at the Tivoli Hotel in Paris on Monday. A family friend of the McDonalds said they were kept completely in the dark about her activities.

The friend said: "They believed she was a high-powered business executive living in Italy, running a firm selling brochures."

McDonald left home at 18 to go to Central London Polytechnic. Police said she then went on to the Reims International Management School in 1984 and held a number of management jobs before setting up her escort girl business five years ago.

Her sister Eileen Le Rossignol said: "She told us she was in market research. She never gave us any indication she was making her living in this awful way." The sister added: "England was never big enough for Margaret."