Sufiah decided to CONFESS ALL after we revealed how the former child prodigy was working as a £130-an-hour prostitute while studying for a masters in economics.
It is the latest heartbreaking twist to a life that seemed so full of promise—but went tragically wrong when she cracked under the pressure of her bullying father’s cruel academic regime and fled university at 15.
Eight years on, he is now in jail for sexually assaulting two girl pupils and Sufiah has somehow convinced herself that her seedy new career is the answer to all her problems.
“People think escorting is sleazy and terrible but I don’t see it like that,” she says. “I’ve always had a high sex drive—and now I’m getting all the sex I want—and guys are much better in bed with an escort than a girlfriend.
“I have men who are thrilled about my passion for mathematics. In fact one made me recite equations while he pleasured me, then I gave him oral sex while he chatted about algebra. It drove him wild.”
And brainbox Sufiah has worked out that subtracting your respectability to become a prostitute can equal big money.
Peeling
“I have a nice life and I am in control,” she says. “I hate this stereotype society has of escorts being exploited. It is so far from the truth.
“My clients treat me like a princess. One guy I see in London took me shopping on Bond Street. He bought me a beautiful black Gucci dress for £700 and then took me to Selfridges and told me to pick any handbag I liked.”
She chose a £600 Gucci clutch. “I’m a Primark and Topshop girl normally! I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
“Later that night we went for dinner. I wore my Gucci dress and sexy lingerie and took great pleasure in peeling it off for him later on back at his hotel.”
Sufiah was working as an administrative assistant earning £ 16,000 a year in Manchester when an escort agency boss approached her in a bar four months ago. She’d run up debts of £3,500 in rent arrears and credit cards.
And she was still haunted by her hellish childhood—subjected to her father Farooq’s Accelerated Learning Technique where she studied maths day in day out in rooms kept freezing cold to improve her concentration.
So the big rewards the agency boss promised seemed more than tempting. “I have studied so intensely for so many years I wanted to have fun,” she says.
She can’t see the sordid side of prostitution—and instead likens herself to Belle De Jour—the saucy hooker played by Billie Piper in the TV drama.
“I’d read Belle De Jour’s Diary of a London Call Girl and was fascinated,” she said. “When this immaculate lady in a designer suit asked if I had ever considered escorting, I found it appealing.
“I went home, researched agencies on the internet and found one I thought looked professional. I sent them photographs and they put me on their site.” A couple of days later Sufiah was offered her first client. She recalls: “I felt quite nervous but excited too. I slipped on some black lace underwear and stockings and suspenders and a dress, and just though, ‘Wow, this is thrilling.’
“He was waiting for me at the bar of the Hilton. I expected him to be older but when I saw him he was lovely.
“He was only in his late 20s, tall and handsome. I thought, ‘I can’t believe I’m getting paid to have sex with this man.’
“I’d have been thrilled if he chatted me up in a bar. We had a drink then went upstairs to his room and had fantastic sex. I left that night feeling totally elated having had an amazing time with £250 in my purse.” Since then, she has built up a base of regular rich clients and sees between five and ten men each week. Her sugar daddies have treated her to fabulous clothes, designer bags, trips on yachts and even helicopter rides.
Sufiah, whose interview can be seen on video at notw.co.uk, brags that she can earn more than £1,000 in a night by having diner with a client and staying over. “It’s like they want to rescue me. One man asked me how much I earned a year. I said £60,000. He told me, ‘I’ll pay that amount straight into your bank and buy you a flat and you can be my mistress.’
“But I don’t want that because I’m happy doing what I do. Now I wonder if I could go back to a normal relationship, where you watch EastEnders and have boring sex. I’ve got used to being treated like a princess.”
It is as if she has run away from reality—just as she ran away from university and her father’s dominance at 15.
Sufiah becomes solemn and subdued when she talks of her upbringing. “As I grew older I began to clash with my father,” she says. “He was violent on occasions. Because he pushed me so far academically, I became more confident for a girl of my age. I grew up too quickly.
“From 11, I was studying maths all the time. I didn’t have any friends. I wasn’t in the Brownies. My father said they didn’t teach Muslim values. I hardly ever played with other children.”
She passed her maths A level aged 12 and started at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. “It was an amazing place but I was too young. By the time I was 15 I wanted to be in control of my life. I fought back.”
Sufiah sparked a two week nationwide police hunt when she ran away instead of going home at the end of term, saying she’d “had enough of 15 years of physical and emotional abuse”. Her father claimed she had been kidnapped and brainwashed by members of a socialist organisation.
But now, speaking about it for the first time, Sufiah says: “I couldn’t bear the thought of going home so I ran away. I’d saved up £200 and found a hostel in London for £14 per night. After a week I moved to a hostel in Bournemouth. I knew I could survive on my own.”
When she was found in an internet cafe, Sufiah refused to go home and was placed in foster care by Bournemouth social services. She says: “I stayed with two families who were very good to me. My mum and dad would call me and ask me to go home—but I didn’t want to.”
Rich
Her 50-year-old father is now in jail for 18 months after being convicted of sexually assaulting two 15-year-old girls he taught at his home in Coventry.
When Sufiah reached 18 she returned to Oxford to continue her studies—and fell in love with fellow student Jonathan Marshall. They married a year later but it barely lasted a year.
“At the time I thought we would be together forever, but we married too young and grew apart,” she says.
After the split she moved back to London where she taught maths in the evenings to make ends meet. Then six months ago she moved to Manchester—and stumbled across her new career. “I’m still only young and I can’t decide what I want to do,” she says. “My escort work provides me with a fabulous life.
“I still enjoy learning and I find it puts me in the right frame of mind for an intelligent conversation with my clients.” But she admits not all her sexual encounters work out. “At the end of the day you don’t have to sleep with a client if you don’t want to. I’ve done that twice now. Both men were young and very nervous. I just left.
“The dullest client I’ve ever had was a rich man who talked about cars all night. It was really, really boring.”
Sufiah is well aware she could easily find a job in the City where she could match her £60,000 a year sex earnings.
But she said: “I don’t want to take anything away from people who do jobs like that but it’s not for me. I have a nice life. I don’t want for anything.”
Her mother Halimahton is now divorcing jailed Farooq and is desperate for her daughter to get in touch with her. “I was shaking when I found out what had become of her,” she says.
But talking about her bitter split with her parents, Sufiah says: “I would describe our relationship as estranged.
“I have contact with them occasionally but I couldn’t speculate on what they will make of my new life.
“I don’t have any regrets. I’ve never felt more confident about my body and I’ve had some of the best sex of my life.”
By Sara Nuwar & Rachel Spencer
