Sufiah Yusof at the age of 15

At 13, Sufiah Yusof posed for the global media in front of St.Hilda’s college as a math prodigy being admitted to Oxford. She was the pride of Malaysia, with the government of the Southeast Asian nation gushing accolades and trumpeting the national slogan “Malaysia Boleh” or “Malaysia Can.”

Last week, a decade later, the child prodigy was back in the headlines after the British tabloid, News of the World reported that Sufiah is now working as a prostitute in Manchester selling her favors for 130 pounds.

 

The newspaper claims it sent an undercover reporter to the 23-year-old’s home, where Sufiah, who allegedly works under the name Shilpa Lee, described the services she reportedly offered.

On her website, she is alleged to have described herself as a “very pretty size eight, 32D bust and 5’5’’ tall — available for bookings every day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m..” The website has since been shut down.

Her friend told the tab: “Sufiah has suffered so many knocks in her life. I just hope she can drag herself out of this life she has got herself into. “She is a good person and deserves a much better life than this. Her gift really has been a curse.”

“The gifted girl with the winning smile had the world at her feet 10 years ago and should be a rich woman by now — but last week she was busy subtracting her underwear for our undercover reporter in her dingy back street flat,” reported the News of the World, along with pictures of Sufiah in various stages of undress.

She says she is a “sexy, smart student” who prefers “older gentlemen”— but a former pal who has witnessed her downfall told the newspaper: “It is all desperately heartbreaking. With her amazing brain she should be able to make money any way she wants. But instead her life has spiraled completely out of control.”

The paper said life has never quite added up for Sufiah. Her descent into prostitution in Salford, Manchester, is the latest in a long line of tragedies to have befallen her since the sunny day when she posed with her university mortar board for the world’s press outside prestigious St. Hilda’s College.

The revelations come as her domineering father Farooq was jailed for sexually assaulting two 15-year-old girls he was tutoring in math at his home. Farooq was always at the root of his daughter’s troubles — even as she passed the further maths A-Level she needed for entry to Oxford at the age of 12. In those days, Sufiah was a strict Muslim child who prayed five times a day and was subjected to her father’s famous Accelerated Learning Technique.
Her days involved stretching and breathing exercises in freezing rooms to keep her brain attentive.

Sufiah would then study hard and be forced to play tennis with just as much intensity as fanatical Farooq drove her on. The routine was so effective Sufiah was seeded number eight in the country for under 21s. But three years into Oxford, the 15-year-old sparked a massive police hunt after running away.

At the time her father bizarrely claimed Sufiah had been kidnapped and brainwashed by an organization seeking the key to her intelligence. But Sufiah sent an e-mail to her family describing her life under her father as a “living hell.” One message to her sister read: “I’ve finally had enough of 15 years of physical and emotional abuse. You know what I am talking about.”

Sufiah was missing for two weeks before being found at an Internet café in Bournemouth where she had been working as a hotel waitress. She refused to go back to her parents and instead was taken into the care of social services.

 
It was then revealed that Farooq had been jailed for three years in 1992 for his part in a £1.5m mortgage swindle. Before that — at the age of 19 — he had been sent to prison for his role in a conspiracy involving £100,000.

 

Free from the spell of her father, Sufiah returned to Oxford to complete the final year of her Masters in Maths. But she failed to finish the course after meeting trainee lawyer Jonathan Marshall. They were married in 2004 when Sufiah was just 19 and Jonathan 24.
Her dreams of a happy life with Jonathan were shattered when the couple divorced just a year later.

Now, in her sad little flat, she uses her body to pay the rent.