AN ALLEGED call girl and her boyfriend lured two men to their flat before attacking one and trying to blackmail the other out of £5,000 in cash, a court has heard.

Emily Anne Akers, 23, took money from the would-be clients at a flat in Heworth before her boyfriend Carl Wesley Mason, 31, suddenly jumped out with a pitbull-type dog, a York Crown Court jury was told yesterday.

One of the men, identified in court only as Mr Brown, accidentally left his Blackberry phone at the scene, and Mason then threatened to send photos of Mr Brown with Akers to all his work contacts, unless he handed over £5,000 in a supermarket car park, Mr Storey told the jury.

But Mr Brown told police before going to the agreed car park meeting, and Mason was arrested as he was on the phone to the alleged blackmail victim.

Ten days earlier, Mason, wearing a balaclava and with a pitbull-type dog at his side, had leapt out of hiding at the couple’s house as another man was starting to undress after allegedly paying Akers £140 for sex.

Mason screamed: “Get out, pervert!”, grabbed the man in a thumb lock and forced him out of the house, the barrister claimed.

Giving evidence yesterday, the client said: “I was in shock. Everything had been so quick, so fast. I was in shock. I started screaming “Give me my money back.”

A police community support officer cycling past intervened and, after speaking to Mason and Akers, told the client to go home and regard it as an expensive lesson because he could be implicated in an offence of “looking for sex”.

The client said he was angry after the officer had gone and banged on the couple’s door again. Mason came out waving a golf club in one hand and holding the dog on a lead in the other. Then Akers sprayed him with something red that gave him a rash.

Mr Storey said to the jury about the alleged victims: “Whatever your views might be about both of these men’s morality, they were both, the prosecution say, in a vulnerable position and that vulnerable position was abused by both these two defendants.”

Mason and Akers, both of Millgarth, Harcourt Street, Heworth, each deny conspiracy to steal and blackmail. Mason also denies two charges of assault.

Mr Storey alleged Akers advertised herself under the name Jessica of York with the words “I just love sex” and a phone number on a “blonde escort” website that featured women in underwear or in the nude.

The first client alleged he arranged to meet Akers at her home for sex after seeing her internet ad on September 11. On arrival, she asked for and got £140 for an hour and led him into a bedroom. There he was unzipping his jacket when Mason suddenly appeared and forced him out of the house, the court heard.

Mr Storey alleged Mr Brown had also been forced to leave the couple’s home by Mason after handing over £160 to Akers and had left his Blackberry behind. The couple then used its contents to contact him at a London hotel and blackmail him.

In police interviews both Akers and Mason claimed the payments to her were only for her companionship and that both Mr Brown and the other man wanted more. So Mason had intervened to protect her.

They denied threatening Mr Brown by phone.

The trial continues.