A self-confessed brat will be put through a tough Army-style training regime on TV tonight.

Natasha Whitlock from Bognor ran wild for years before she was accepted on Channel 4's Brat Camp.

She attacked a teacher, set fire to bins, drank until she was sick, was arrested for a happy slap attack on another girl and lost her virginity at 14.

Unable to control her wayward daughter, mum Montana showered her with gifts and gave in to her every whim.

It was only when Natasha's school phoned estate agent Montana at work to say they were suspending the teenager for the eighth time that something began to change.

The call was taken by Montana's secretary, who decided to enrol Natasha in the next series of Brat Camp. Four months later the show called and offered to take Natasha and Montana to the notorious reform school in Arizona, which gives youngsters a taste of a regime not dissimilar to national service.

The pair accepted and were posted to the American labour camp, where Natasha was made to hike in the blazing sun with a 20kg backpack then sleep on rough terrain in temperatures of minus 10 degrees.

Remarkably, the venture seems to have worked.

Natasha, now 15, has started treating her mother with respect, has got herself a part time job and has an offer of a full time position when she leaves school.

She is expected to get six As and Bs in her GCSEs. Before Brat Camp, Natasha was expecting to fail all her exams.

Montana, 48, a single parent, said: "I had three years of going through hell with Natasha. My staff at work could see it because the calls used to get put through to the office from the school.

"Then the school called and said she was going to be banned for the eighth time and if it happened one more time she would be expelled.

"I was so low. I started to cry and my secretary said, I am going to call Brat Camp.

"I thought they would send Natasha there, I didn't know it was going to be a mother and daughter thing. They said there was no point teaching the daughter if you don't teach the mother.

"When they told me that, I could see the sense.

"That was the essence of how everything changed. I was just as much to blame."

On the show, Natasha will be seen screaming abuse at her mother because she did not get a £300 Tiffany necklace for her birthday. The programme will also describe how Natasha was arrested for shoplifting in Boots even though she had been given £40 pocket money.

Montana admitted she was guilty of using her wealth to spoil her only daughter.

She said: "I started a business when she was one because my husband didn't want to work. He left us a year later. I had this two-year-old child and a one-year-old business.

"She was always very demanding.

"I just gave in to her and she became ever more demanding. When she got old enough to realise she could manipulate me she did and I wasn't wise enough to realise it. She wanted to do everything that was opposite to me.

"Up until that time, we were really close.

"I didn't make the right boundaries. I realise now that love is firm as well as soft. I found it hard to be tough. Now I know giving in will create more of the bad behaviour."

Natasha laughed when she heard about Brat Camp but agreed to go on the trip.

Montana said: "I think she went because she thought it would be a laugh. She didn't know what to expect. She was really shocked.

"I am over 40, I didn't expect to be hiking for six hours a day."

Now Natasha works on release from school for two days a week at Fitness First and has the offer of a full time job when she is 16, although she would like to finish her studies.

Montana said: "She has never done anything like that before because money's always been too easy for her.

"She is quite personable when she wants to be.

"She used to go weeks and not speak to me. She is still a teenager, she is spiky, but she is very different now. If we have an argument, she is the one that deals with it."

Brat Camp is on Channel 4 tonight at 10pm.

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