She had sex and showbiz parties in her Kensington home, was loved by Moors murderer Myra Hindley, kept a pet goose when she was a child, was tried at the Old Bailey, owned a Rolls-Royce, ran a call-girl agency for diplomats and aristocracy, was sent to prison where she wore a mink coat, appeared topless at a world premiere in Piccadilly, is a long-standing friend of Lord Bath, released a single with The Clash and was kept by a colonel. These are incidents from the life of Janie Jones (born Marion Mitchell). She was the little-known cabaret singer, and vocalist on the Sixties hit Witch’s Brew, who became the most talked about madam in town. She became infamous for her alleged involvement in the 1971 Payola scandal – accused of offering sexual favours to disc jockeys as an inducement to play her records, but found not guilty. And in 1973 she was sentenced to seven years for controlling prostitutes and attempting to pervert the course of justice by threatening violence to witnesses. She was dubbed ‘an evil woman’ by Judge Alan King-Hamilton but released on parole in 1977.

Now she has written a book, The Devil and Miss Jones. She hasn’t named Lord Y, the peer who made love to girls dressed as school children carrying teddy bears. But Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Cat Stevens and Roman Polanski all appear in her book . . .

She also writes about her former prison friend Myra Hindley (‘The Devil’ of the title). In prison, Hindley swore passionate love for Jones (‘revive me with your kisses,’ she wrote to Jones). ‘She fancied me rotten. She came over as a timid, little-girl-lost Princess Di type.’ Hindley fooled her that the Moors murders ‘were committed only by Ian Brady’, and Jones subsequently protested her innocence publicly.

Jones felt inspired to write the book following Hindley’s confession in 1987 about the whereabouts of Pauline Reade’s grave, because she realised that Hindley had conned her. ‘She’s very complicated, conniving, convincing and hypnotic. She should never be released,’ she says.

Jones is sitting in her Campden Hill Road house, scene of her sex parties with the infamous seven-foot bed and two-way mirror. The front window is stuffed with soft toys and dolls (odd). Eric, a bespectacled former county court clerk and one-time self-confessed slave who said in court that he was a virgin, opens the door. ‘Eric, coffee,’ shrieks Jones.

Jones once had 120 call girls (‘out-of-work actresses and models’) on her books. ‘A Lord would say to me, ‘I need 24 ladies to go out for dinner’,’ she says, straight-faced. ‘At my parties, stars had a free-for-all on the bed,’ she recalls in her Durham accent. ‘One disc jockey would lock the door and conduct an interview for a secretary.’

She maintains she was wrongly convicted, denying that she was paid. ‘A girl would visit a diplomat in Claridge’s. If she dropped her drawers or anything kinky, she’d arrange the money.’ It’s difficult to believe Jones did it, well, for love. ‘No it’s not. It’s just something I got inveigled into through my own stupidity.’ Was she ever a prostitute? ‘No.’ But she once went topless as a publicity stunt to a film premiere in Piccadilly. ‘I don’t crave attention. I got into these situations because I’m outrageous.’ Her sister joined in. ‘I said we’d steal the show with topless long dresses and a Rolls-Royce. We practised in the Edgware Road first and a passing car bumped into the one in front. I said to my sister, ‘Just imagine the top of the dress is there and think, what are all these idiots looking at?’ ‘ Jones always persuades herself that the Emperor has a lot of clothes on.

Jones is fiftysomething (‘39 for ever,’ she says, aggressively), plump and colourful in applique jumper and crushed-velvet skirt, with a rag-doll-painted face, Barbara Cartland lashes and peroxided hair. She has the tough voice of a survivor and a powerful, theatrical presence. She is unstable and inhabits a self-protective fantasy land. ‘It’s best sometimes to go off into your world of fantasy. I don’t like the world we live in. When I was in prison, I wasn’t in prison. The music was on and I was in a recording studio.’

Her prison experience was grim and she still has nightmares about it. ‘One girl burned herself alive in the hospital wing. I can still smell that burning flesh in my dreams. I was in a house full of murderesses who all had the needle because I had a date to get out.’

She also claims to have had psychic experiences in prison. There is an episode in the book when she asks God for a sign to indicate Hindley’s innocence: ‘She appeared to be coming off the bed, floating upwards, and she was surrounded by the most beautiful colours.’

She found many prisoners ‘evil, vile and jealous’ – and her mink coat was burned. ‘They gave me a hard time, but I earned their respect. I scrubbed the floors better than any, did the toilets out, never grumbled.’ And she is fascistic in her penal views. ‘When violent prisoners go to Holloway, they shouldn’t be kept in the new wing where they have toilets at their disposal. They’re there for punishment, not pleasure.’

Jones maintains she had a ‘very happy’ childhood. Her mother was in her late forties when she was born. ‘She went to the doctor with a pain in her stomach and he said, ‘I’ll be delivering that pain in a couple of hours’.’ Jones was the seventh child of a seventh child. Her father was a Durham miner, and they lived in a house with an outside lavatory. ‘He slogged himself to death to bring in money. He ruled with a rod of iron. His word was law.’ She says it was a God-fearing background.

Her parents were prudish and never even saw one another naked. ‘I had to wear knee-length knickers as a child. My mother was horrified when I started working, dancing in a G-string. My father always said men are after one thing and have no respect for women. I believe that too. I don’t trust men, full stop.’

She started working, aged 16, as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. She then moved to the Windmill Theatre where she did five shows a day. ‘But I would never appear naked.’ She says she was celibate for a long time. ‘I’ve never had any of this earth-moving stuff. I think sex is all a big pain and aggravation. At the parties I never joined in anything.’

She had one marriage. In 1968, she wed self-confessed former drug addict and songwriter John Christian-Dee (‘The Crank,’ she calls him). Within months things went wrong. ‘I didn’t want to marry him. It’s just he said if I didn’t, he wouldn’t get off the heroin.’ She then decided he was schizophrenic and aborted their twins.

In court, she boasted of the marriage proposals she’d turned down and the thousands she was offered by Arab princes and British aristocrats. ‘I’d go out for dinner and say, ‘No hididdlediddle, no rummagin’ merrily with me’. I had a power over men. The more I insulted them, the more they’d come back.’ So is Eric the lodger her slave? ‘No, never ever. He’d be the worst,’ she laughs. ‘But I’ve had some good slaves in my time.’

And how does she support herself now? ‘That,’ she screams, ‘is none of your bloody business.’