Madison Ashton, Pratt’s mistress works as escort in Sydney’s Miss Fleiss agency

Yesterday a spokesman for the Miss Fleiss agency confirmed that Ms Ashton had been under contract to the agency in 2000 as a 25-year-old, the same year she is said to have been introduced to Mr Pratt. The spokesman refused to say if Mr Pratt was a client but it is understood he regularly procured women from the agency on visits to Sydney in the last decade of his life. Ms Ashton's lawyer Fred David refused to comment yesterday. It is further alleged that Ms Ashton - who commanded a fee of $3000 an hour - was under contract to the escort agency and that she broke that contract and quit the sex industry after Mr Pratt fell in love with her and offered to support her. The news that Mr Pratt employed sex workers during his frequent visits to Sydney is likely to reopen an embarrassing can of worms for the conservative and private Pratt family, members of Melbourne's elite. The family has never commented on the revelations that thrust the family into the media spotlight after the long-running affair with Shari-Lea Hitchcock was discovered. Ms Hitchcock, the mother of Mr Pratt's 12-year-old love child, has said she is unaware of Ms Ashton.