A MADAME who is estimated to have made £500,000 running a seedy brothel empire has been told to pay back just £42,000.

Hai Hong Liu was jailed for nine months two years ago for her sordid work in sex dens across the North East.

She has been hauled back to court again as the authorities try to claw back some of her ill-gotten gains in a confiscation hearing.

Prosecutors initially claimed Liu had benefited to the tune of £499,722 from her work as a madame.

But she was ordered to pay back just £42,212 after a judge ruled her benefit from crime could only be proved to have been £60,000.

She was also given a fresh four-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, after breaching a restraint order placed on her assets.

Liu had been banned from accessing a bank account of hers which contained £30,000 but, within months of the order, she had withdrawn £24,000 of it.

She claimed £2,500 of it had gone on a gambling habit and said she was a member of least six casinos.

Liu, 56, went on to breach the order twice more by selling two takeaway businesses which were part of the restraint order.

Imposing the sentence Judge Guy Whitburn, at Newcastle Crown Court, said Liu was an “intelligent and devious woman” and said he suspected that, before working as a madame, she had “served an apprenticeship in the oldest profession herself”.