A former call girl who spent her first year in the brutal escort industry living in the district has published her memoirs.

Rachael Webster, 41, moved to Loughton High Road from Manchester as a single mother in her early 20s after seeing an article about escorts in a magazine.

Living in a flat above a shop, she had clients in the West End as well as in and around Loughton and could earn £1,000 for spending a night with them.

She said: “I called Loughton a millionaires’ retreat. It was the first place I lived since moving from Manchester and it was quite a big contrast.

“Some of my clients round there were millionaires and others were businessmen.”

She said one well-known client, who she refuses to name, asked her to marry him.

But other clients were gangsters and she suffered beatings, as well as men threatening to set her on fire or shoot her in the head.

“I was lucky to escape with my life on more than one occasion,” she said. “I called one chapter in my book Running from Monsters, because that’s what I was doing at times.”

She worked as a call girl on and off for 15 years, before suffering swelling of the brain after the death of her mother and giving up.

“I started and stopped, which all the girls do – you might have a ‘normal’ job for a while,” she said.

“I’m now a self-employed author and working on my second book.”

Her current book, Autobiography of a Former High-Class Call Girl: Life on the First Floor, is available from Amazon priced £8.99 or £1.99 as an e-book.