A CALL girl collapsed wailing in the dock as she and her killer boyfriend were jailed for 12 years between them for blackmail and conspiracy to steal.

Emily Anne Akers, 23, had earlier had hysterics at the courtroom door when her case was called, and security and court staff and her legal team had to persuade her to go into court to learn her punishment.

York Crown Court heard she had lured men to the house she shared with Carl Mason, 32, where she took their money and he terrified them into leaving without the sex they wanted.

On one occasion, Mason, who had previously served prison sentences for manslaughter and blinding a man with an air rifle, burst out of a wardrobe wearing a balaclava and holding a dog on a lead.

Tom Storey, prosecuting, said when one of the victims left his Blackberry behind in his hurried departure, the pair plotted to blackmail him into handing over £5,000 by threatening to tell his family and business associates about his visit to Akers.

But he told York police who, with the victim’s help, set a trap and caught Mason in Morrison’s car park in Foss Islands Road.

Recorder Andrew Haslam said of Mason and Akers’ conspiracy to steal and the violence towards her clients: “These were serious offences involving premeditation and a significant degree of planning employed together with the threat and use of violence.”

Of the blackmail he said it also involved significant planning. “It was persistent. You intimidated him over a number of days. In my judgement, deterrent sentences are required.”

Mason and Akers, both then of Harcourt Street in Heworth, were convicted by a jury last month of blackmail and conspiracy to steal. Mason was also convicted of two assaults against Akers’ clients. Both denied all the charges they faced.

Mason was jailed for seven years and Akers for five. Akers has previous convictions for assault, including against a person acting in a “quasi-police” role, and Mason had a previous conviction for assaulting his then girlfriend.

For Akers, James Bourne-Arton said the couple had an “abusive relationship in which she was the vulnerable, subordinate girlfriend, vulnerable by not only her job, but also her prior drug addiction. and her weak character.”

Before Mason came into her life, she had managed to kick her heroin habit and been turning her life around, but after he arrived, she started taking M-cat, a Class B drug, and since her conviction had started taking heroin again.

She was terrified of going to prison.

Mitigating for Mason, David Dixon told the court: “There is little I can say.”

Mason accepted he was the main mover in the blackmail offence, but he did not play the leading role in the theft conspiracy. The offences had not been sophisticated.