A premium rate phone sex line in Sherwood, Nottingham was staffed with forty local women rather than the advertised 'Filipina girls'. Boss Andrew Vanderahe, 41, was fined £65 with £1,000 costs for breaching the Trade Descriptions Act. 'We had to act,' said a council spokesman. 'So many men were being ripped off'.'

Hungry to get some meat on the bones of the report, I contacted one of the cheated callers. He made himself comfortable by his phone and in hushed, nervous tones, he described his disappointing experience...

'I wouldn't have minded, but she kept on and on about her arthiritis and how she's on pills for this and pills for that and how you can't get a decent piece of fish anymore and how there's not enough shelter at bus stops and how what with all those yobs about she's scared of going out in the daytime, let alone after dark. It was a good ten minutes before she got around to what she was wearing.'