Ex-escort who was jailed for ordering the murder the Earl of Shaftesbury is at ... trends now

It was one of the most sensational true crime cases in history to involve the British aristocracy: the owner of a huge Dorset estate and head of one the oldest family titles in Britain murdered on the order of his wife, a former escort and Playboy model.

The shocking story began on the Cote d'Azur Jamila Ben M'Barek was sent to the Cannes holiday home of the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury, Antony Ashley-Cooper, for sex in 2002.

So taken with her was he, that the Earl ended up marrying her when she told him she was pregnant. But instead of a happy ending, just two years later, the decision was to lead to his death as, intent on enjoying his fortune for herself, she persuaded her brother to kill him.

Now MailOnline has tracked down the former call girl on her release from a 25-year prison sentence for plotting his killing - to discover that, incredibly, she is still using the title the Dowager Countess of Shaftesbury that she acquired through her twisted marriage.

VID RAW: 2948063 Jamila M'Barek: 'I should have called the police and told them'

And in her first ever interview about the scandal, The 'Countess' has vowed to battle her dead husband's family to make sure she keeps the title, saying she will spill secrets about the family, and vowing: 'I will fight and I will win.'

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the 'Countess' - or Comtesse, the French version of the word as she styles herself on Instagram with photos of her sashaying around St Tropez - said: 'The family were never happy with me marrying Anthony.'

The Earl's son, Nick Ashley-Cooper, the current 11th Earl of Shaftesbury, is understood to have pledged to do all that it takes to strip his stepmother of the title.

But she says: 'Nick has said he will take the title from me but he won't have it easy. I will take him on in court and I will fight him and I will win.

'He has no right, I married his father and so legally I am the Countess whether he likes it or not. He can pay for all the expensive lawyers he wants but I will still fight him and win.

'Nick should know that I have kept many notes from my time in prison and I knew all the secrets of the Shaftesbury family, and I'm not afraid to share them with the world and write a book about it.'

In claims that will no doubt infuriate the current Earl, the 'Countess' claimed the animosity was all down to him 'having a bad relationship with his father' and claimed that it was her who helped the Earl find happiness.

'Nick and Anthony's sister Frances weren't happy that he was seeing me but they didn't know I made him happy and he was happy to be with me.

'I was the one looking after him and when he proposed it was perfect - I gave him what he needed and he gave me what I needed.

'We had fun times together and we enjoyed each other's company. We had a good life together and that's what his family in Britain couldn't stand.'

Back at the family seat of St Giles House, near Wimborne St Giles in Dorset, it's easy to see how the relationship would, and still riles, with the whirlwind romance turning to marriage just six months after they met.

The Earl's will reveals how he added her name a week before they married in 2002, while his wedding gift to her was a £500,000 apartment in Cannes and an £8,000 month allowance.

But within months of tying the knot, the relationship soured, with Ben M'Barek describing how hard life became with the Earl due to his heavy drinking and womanising.

In an extraordinary account of her time with him, she claims he would regularly get drunk and bring prostitutes back to her home in Cannes with no consideration for her wellbeing.

As their marriage crumbled and he told her in 2004 that he wanted a divorce, she gave him an ominous warning, telling him: 'You'll be sorry.'

Shortly after their angry exchange, the Earl was dead, having been murdered by the Countess' brother Mohammed, who carried out the killing on her order.

They almost got away with the murder with the aristocrat's badly decomposed body not being found for six months.

But the siblings were caught and both jailed for 25 years for murder during a high-profile trial. They were quietly released in 2016.

The Countess is now living in Zurich. Wallowing in self-pity, recalling the disastrous marriage, she said: 'Anthony changed and went back to being a drunk and a cocaine addict.

Wearing a £20k Cartier watch, Gucci trainers with a gold band and a huge emerald ring surrounded with a diamond cluster on a white gold band on her wedding finger, she went on: 'He would bring prostitutes and gangsters back to the house, I was scared and at one point one of them even threatened me with a knife. I said to Anthony this can't go on and he just said I could 'Go and throw myself off the balcony.

'The family view seemed to be that he had all the money and he should sort himself out - and as I had married him I was responsible for him.'

Recounting the events of the day her husband died, aged 66, the she said: 'I had asked Mohammed to come and help me talk with Anthony, to try and sort things out, there was nothing premeditated like the court said, there was no knife or gun.

'The trial was a joke, there was no justice, the judge just wouldn't accept anything I said. How can it be premeditated? Why would I ask my brother to kill my husband in the house where I live with my children in the middle of the day?

'This is not justice, it's racism, if my name had been Jennifer or Caroline, I wouldn't have been convicted of murder, it's because I am Arabic and because of that I was given 25 years for a murder I didn't commit.'

When asked what in her opinion would have been a fair sentence then, she astonishingly said: 'In jail I spoke to many people who had committed crimes and I filled 20 exercise books with notes - at the most I should have got three years.

'That would have been a reasonable sentence because what I was guilty of was not giving assistance and preventing a death, it was my brother that murdered Anthony not me and he then put pressure on me not to tell the police.

'It was a fight between two men and it happened in front of me in the hallway of my house. I tried to stop it but there was nothing I could do. They were hitting and punching each other and then Anthony was dead.'

Pausing for dramatic effect and wiping her face with her hand, she added: 'I didn't say anything to the police when it happened because I was frozen. I was disconnected from reality and I was crying as well. I just couldn't believe what had happened.

'I was frozen, I was shocked, I was shaking and I said to my brother we had to call the police but Mohammed said if I did then we would both go to jail, we just both sat there not knowing what to do.