Nine years for pimp who hit call girl (From The Argus)

Nine years for pimp who hit call girl

6:00pm Saturday 4th July 2009

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HE thought he could control women.

And when one of his prostitutes stole cash he had been laundering to set up a rival business he lashed out – bundling her into a car and threatening to torture her family.

Violent pimp Peter Orwell, 36, who ran Brighton Angels escort agency, was yesterday beginning a nine-year jail sentence.

Hove Crown Court was told the prostitute, who for legal reasons can only be named as Sarah, had tricked Orwell who was involved in a scam to drain £18,000 from a dead man’s bank account.

Orwell had persuaded Sarah to let him “launder”

the money through her brother Stephen’s bank account while Stephen was in prison.

He took the card from the account from Sarah but she switched it for one that did not work when she and another prostitute quit Brighton Angels to set up on their own in February last year.

Walton Hornsby, prosecuting, said: “When Orwell discovered this he was furious.

“He set up a bogus meeting for her with Richard Marks at Jurys Hotel near Brighton Station.

She thought she was going to meet a client.”

The court was told that Orwell recruited schoolfriend Max Bellos to drive him there in his BMW.

Orwell disguised himself and punched Sarah around the face and head and threatened to take her to a field and tie her up.

Mr Hornsby said: “She was told that they were going to kill her and torture her family. This lasted for several minutes and she was very scared.”

The mother-of-two was driven to retrieve the real card before she was dumped in the street.

The money in the account belonged to pensioner Malcolm Heritage, a friend and tenant of Brighton landlord Richard Marks who now lives in Spain.

Marks found Mr Heritage’s chequebook when he cleared out his flat after he died on December 26, 2007.

Marks, 61, was owed money for unpaid rent and had been told by Mr Heritage that he had been left something in his will.

Mr Hornsby said: “Marks passed the cheque book on to Orwell knowing that it may well be used to extract money from Mr Heritage’s account.”

Orwell, of Atlingworth Street, Brighton, admitted controlling prostitutes.

He was found guilty of false imprisonment, causing actual bodily harm to Sarah and of money laundering after two separate trials at Hove Crown Court.

Orwell has previous convictions for violence against women and attempted robbery.

Bellos, 34, of Tower Road, Brighton, was found guilty of false imprisonment. He has a previous conviction for common assault.

Marks, formerly of Arundel Place, Brighton, admitted money laundering.

He was of previous good character.

Orwell was jailed for a total of nine years, Bellos for three years and Marks was given a 12 month prison sentence suspended for two years.

Judge David Rennie said: “You decided to take the law into your own hands.

“You, Orwell, were mesmerised by the fact that a mere woman had got one over on you and you simply could not bear that.

“This was a cowardly piece of bullying behaviour of the sort you have committed before when you have beaten up women who did not bend to your will.” He added that the money laundering was grubby, greedy and disrespectful.

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