A 30-year-old sex-trade worker has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her daughter by attempting to prep her to have sex with one of her adult male clients for a “significant amount of money.”

The mother, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of her daughter, was trying to perform a sex act on her daughter when the girl cried, “please stop, it hurts,” according to an agreed statement of facts read into court by Crown prosecutor Rosalind Greenwood.

She then stopped and, when the girl said she no longer wanted to have sex with “the man with the deep voice,” said the prosecutor, the mother did not press the issue.

About a year after the incident in December 2010, a teacher overheard the girl telling a schoolmate about the incident and contacted police and child welfare.

When interviewed by police, the girl said she was scared the man would call back and that she had nightmares about being kidnapped.

Greenwood, in seeking a five-year prison sentence for the mother, said it was a severe breach of trust but by not asking for a longer penalty saved the girl from the hardship of having to testify in court.

She said the man had offered $100,000 to have sex with the girl and the mother would give some of the money to her daughter.

“She was grooming her own child to enter the sex trade,” said Greenwood. “To ask your nine-year-old daughter to have sex with a man is horrifying.”

Defence lawyer Allan Fay, asking for a sentence of three to four years, told the judge great weight should be placed on his client’s guilty plea and remorse.

The woman, when asked if she wanted to tell court anything, wiped away tears and said, “there’s just nothing to say ... nothing.”

Hughes will pass sentence June 28.