An Oxhey masseuse has banned men from her practice after becoming fed up with customers angling for erotic favours.

Kate Codrington made the decision after years of late-night phone calls, frequent requests for "massage sex" and even had one customer turn up for a session in plastic pants.

The 48-year-old, who treats people at her Capel Road home, has been working as a therapist for 21 years.

She said: "Having men ask me for inappropriate requests has happened on and off for as long as I have been working.

"The other week I was sitting at the computer with my partner and this man rang up and asked me how much I charged for massage sex.

"In a way, I’d rather them be up front about it on the phone as at least then you know.

"It’s much more difficult when men ring up and say they have something like sciatica, which I can work with, and then they turn up for the appointment expecting something else, which is really creepy."

The mother-of-two took the decision to only work with female clients after receiving on average about four calls a week from "inappropriate" callers.

Ms Codrington now specialises in abdominal and pregnancy massages.

She said: "Of course it’s not fair to turn half the population away but I need to be safe and it just wears me down.

"I don’t want to give these people any energy. I have got a lot to do and I don’t have time to deal with this, it’s not part of my world."

Talking about one of the strangest experiences she has had, Ms Codrington said that a client once came for a massage wearing unusual undergarments.

She explained: "There was a man who came with plastic pants and I could hear this rustling sound.

"At the time I was very angry as he put me in a very difficult position. But looking back he was probably feeling quite ashamed. He seemed very anxious at the time."

Ms Codrington said she felt her business was established enough to be able to turn away 50 per cent of her potential customers.

She said: "I’m in a fairly good position now as I’ve been doing it for a long time. But it’s much harder for young people who are starting out as therapists as they are taking all the business they can and it puts them at risk."

She added: "Everyone has the right to work without fear of sexual harassment. Massage therapists are no different."