So John, why DID you hire playboy model as the new au pair?

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Lap of luxury: John Caudwell and Claire Johnson in the mansion. Bottom: Agnieszka Hendel

Most families would quickly show their nanny the door if they discovered she was a Playboy centrefold. But then the Caudwells are no ordinary family.

When flamboyant mobile phone tycoon John Caudwell and his girlfriend found out that the Polish au pair they had hired to look after their two-year-old son, Jacobi, had posed naked for the soft-porn magazine, they were delighted.

Indeed, they bought 25-year-old Agnieszka Hendel sexy dresses and paid her to attend their lavish parties and add a touch more glamour to the occasions.

Fifty-four-year-old Mr Caudwell, the self-made billionaire founder of Phones4U, and his girlfriend Claire Johnson, a former beauty queen, employed Agnieszka at their 16-bedroom Jacobean mansion in Staffordshire after she replied to an advert he had posted on the internet.

For Agnieszka, the daughter of a truck driver from the small north Polish town of Bytow, near Gdansk, the job was a dream come true, and her boyfriend Michael, 38, encouraged her to seize the opportunity.

But he had also sent photographs of Agnieszka to Playboy magazine - and three days before taking up her new post with the Caudwells, the magazine got in touch and asked her to do a photoshoot.

She posed for shots - including sitting naked in a fridge while she poured milk over herself - then left Berlin, where she was studying German, for Britain.

When Agnieszka arrived at Broughton Hall, the Caudwells' vast £10million home, last February, she decided to stay quiet about the session. She said: "At first I didn't tell the family. It's my own business. And it was just in the German edition of Playboy. But when it came out, I decided to tell them.

"They were surprised but they saw the pictures and said I looked great. They didn't mind. I think they were proud of me." In fact, they topped up her £400-a-month salary with designer dresses to show off her figure at their extravagant parties.

"They had lots of parties and they bought me nice clothes,' she said. "Claire bought me a sexy green dress in America. They bought me a dress for the May ball, too. People were talking about me and my dress because it was so sexy. They were saying things like, "Have you seen the nanny?"

"Then there was a charity ball where I had to wear diamonds, modelling them before they were sold. I had my own security guard and they went for £20,000.

"But the family were always very nice, very pleasant and very respectful. There was never any funny business."

But despite the glamorous late-night soirees, Agnieszka was still expected to be up early every morning to care for young Jacobi.

"After six months I was tired, and I missed my boyfriend. I wanted to go back to Berlin and continue my studies. But I am concentrating on modelling now. I love modelling and being a Playboy Playmate. I am being sensible and putting much of the money away for later.

"I loved working in the Caudwell house. They were very nice to me. And I had an amazing time. I had my own car with satellite navigation, my own flat and when we went anywhere more than two hours' drive away we would go in John's helicopter.

"I had only been there a week when we all went on holiday skiing in the French Alps. My family couldn't believe the life I was living."

But Mr Caudwell, who sold his mobile phone business in August for £1.46billion, is used to unconventional domestic arrangements. His former wife, childhood sweetheart Kate, with whom he has three grown-up children, lives just down the road from the vast home he shares with Claire, 37.

And he has a four-year-old daughter whom he never sees. Scarlett Coco was born after a fling with acclaimed violinist Jane Burgess that he is said to bitterly regret.

Agnieszka regards her six-month employment with the family as something of an education but added: "I don't think I will be an au pair again. It is time to start thinking about having children of my own. I would like two, ideally.

"But I wouldn't employ an au pair, I think children have to be with their mothers."

Last night Mr Caudwell was with his family skiing in Vancouver, Canada. He said: "When Agnieszka was recruited we had no knowledge of the Playboy photoshoots.

"She came with excellent references and worked with the family for some time before the Playboy pictures became known.

"I don't wish to comment on the photographs but we had a very good working relationship and she was a good employee."

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