A COUPLE jailed for running a brothel in a two-bedroomed terrace house have escaped having to make any Proceeds of Crime payment.

Former Northern Rock IT consultant Stephen Hodgkiss and his former Thai mistress, Waraporn Dodds, were believed to have earned thousands of pounds running the massage parlour in Darlington.

They took the £25 or £35 initial charge paid by customers for massages at the Major Street premises, but their two Thai masseuses kept any further payment for subsequent sexual favours.

A judge at Durham Crown Court yesterday ruled it was “impossible” to ascertain what benefit they made from their activities and, therefore, no order was made against them.

In February last year, following complaints from neighbours, undercover police officers visited the property.

The visit resulted in Hodgkiss and Dodds being charged with keeping a brothel, for 18 months from June 2006.

They pleaded guilty and were jailed, Hodgkiss for eight months and Dodds for six months, at Newcastle Crown Court, last November.

Having served their sentences, Hodgkiss, 45, and 39- year-old Dodds were back in court for yesterday’s Proceeds of Crime Act application by the Crown Prosecution Service, in Durham.

Chris Williamson, prosecuting, said, given the £21,000 turnover of the massage business, the couple must have benefited from customers who used the premises knowing that other sexual activities were on offer.

But Tom Moran, for Hodgkiss, who shared a flat with Dodds in St George’s Terrace, Jesmond, Newcastle, said only money for the massages was paid into an account for their child, being looked after by Dodds’ relatives in Thailand, while the masseuses kept money for sexual activity.

Giving his ruling, Judge Christopher Prince said, although it was estimated an average 28 men visited the premises per week: “I have absolutely no way of calculating how many went there for the purpose of only having a lawful massage given by a scantilyclad young lady and how many then also received sexual services, and would not have attended only for massages.

“Justice dictates that rather than identify an arbitrary figure I don’t identify any figure at all. So, such profits the defendants made, how great or small they be, they will retain.”

Asked if he had any comment to make as he left court, Hodgkiss told reporters: “No, certainly not, you had a field day last time.”