Sex is always going to be sold

IT WAS the furtive arrivals that were the give-away.

Neighbours of the discreet suburban semi in Clifton Moor where Oriental women were selling sex became all too used to seeing men arriving at all hours.

Teenagers to elderly men would turn up at the house from lunchtime onwards, right through the afternoon and evening and into the early hours.

Disgraceful, was how one woman living nearby described it. "Some of the people visiting the house are very unsavoury characters," she said, speaking in 2003 when the Evening Press first exposed the brothel.

"There are children on this street who knew what was going on," another added.

That was what made the brothel in Whitley Close unusual for York.

It is hard to gauge just how many people work in the sex trade in the city. Despite two high-profile cases in 2000 in which police swooped on brothels in Nunnery Lane and Fishergate, York does not have a vice problem that begins to compare with Leeds.

There, the Holbeck and Chapeltown areas are notorious for street-walkers and kerb-crawlers.

In York, everything is much more discreet.

"I wasn't even aware there were brothels in York," admitted one woman, who described herself as an "escort".

Selling sex in York may be discreet, but it does happen.

The woman, who did not want to be named, said she had been entertaining guests at her "own place" in York for six months. "Nobody else on the street knew what I was doing," she said.

"I didn't work as much as those girls the Oriental brothel workers. I didn't have clients coming in day after day, maybe just two a week or four a week. They should have been more discreet."

She had never worked in a brothel, she added. "I always work for myself. It is a lot safer. I have never had a pimp."

She always insisted on "full protection," she said - but added that often her work involved nothing more than keeping a client company. "I don't advertise that they are going to get sex," she said. "When you're an escort, a lot of the time you just go out for meals, just spending a couple of hours with them because they don't have anybody else."

Did she know of other women like her working in York? There were no girls working the streets that she knew of, she said - but there were other women who advertised their services the way she did.

"Stuff like this has been going on for years," she said. "You're never going to stop it."

The man who ran the York brothel, Hao Wang, is now beginning a two-year jail sentence - and may also face deportation after the court heard how he had twice ran bordellos in the city. He set up the operation in Whitley Close less than a month after leaving a rented house in Montague Street where he also ran a brothel. He subsequently moved to Blackpool, where he opened a third establishment.

Wang's accomplice, Yuanjia Hu, was ordered to do 180 hours community punishment and pay £350 costs.

Police said today there was no evidence to prove that women who had worked in Wang's brothels had been coerced in any way, or that the operation was part of an international sex smuggling operation.

The women themselves have disappeared.

"We've never spoken to the women, so we don't know," said Det Constable Ian Murray of York CID, one of the officers involved in the investigation.

Police in York do not believe the city has a major problem with prostitution. When brothels did begin to operate in the city, DC Murray pointed out, local people tended to be quick to complain to the police and authorities.

It is not something that happens often. "So if there is something going on, it is very discreet," he says.

No law will ever end prostitution

PROSTITUTION is often described as the "oldest profession in the world". It is a trade that no amount of legislation is ever going to end.

So what about decriminalising it: making it possible, for example, for properly regulated brothels to be set up where clients and prostitutes could conduct their business in safety?

Prostitutes could be given regular health checks and advice on safe sex. Young women who had been drawn into the profession through desperation - homelessness, or the need to pay for drugs, for example - could be offered routes out of prostitution.

"Managed prostitution" is a possibility the Government has been considering in a consultation it launched last year.

The consultation document, Paying The Price, said the Government was "determined to combat the stranglehold of pimps and break the links between prostitution and drug markets, trafficking and other areas of organised crime.

"It is equally determined to protect and support the victims of trafficking, abuse and prostitution - the communities that suffer the anti-social behaviour associated with it and the prostitutes, who often find themselves trapped in a violent circle of abuse."

Speaking at the launch of the consultation, the then Home Secretary David Blunkett said: "The realities of prostitution - both for those involved and for the wider community - are often brutal.

"It involves the abuse of children - as many as 70 per cent of women on the streets were coerced into prostitution as young people - and serious exploitation of adults. Violence, organised crime and problematic drug use are common features - as many as 90 per cent of those involved in street prostitution have a Class A drug habit."

The results of the consultation are yet to be announced, and until then the Home Office will not be drawn on the likely recommendations.

It has, however, released some of the comments - from members of the public and organisations involved in working with prostitution - received during the four month consultation period from July to November last year.

They range from outright condemnation of the idea of 'legalised brothels' to recognition that it may be the only way to protect prostitutes from pimps and illegal trafficking (see panel).

Ruth Potter, a Labour councillor on City of York Council, can see the advantages of properly regulating the industry.

"I don't think prostitution is something you're ever going to get rid of," she said. "It has always been an issue in York, if you go back through history.

"My view is that this issue is often swept under the carpet due to embarrassment - or worse, a view that nothing can be done because prostitution is inevitable."

Many young women and men were often drawn into prostitution when they were extremely vulnerable, she said - possibly through desperation as a result of being homeless or needing drugs. Such people needed protection, help, advice and healthcare.

A properly regulated system would mean there were ways for them to escape a life of prostitution, because they would have someone to go to.

"I don't have a problem with those who are over 18 choosing to pursue this profession if they so wish," Coun Potter said. "But the business must be carried out under appropriate regulation with health checks and in registered brothels.

"Such measures will help prevent the young and vulnerable from becoming involved, protect prostitutes and their customers and help those communities that are now plagued by kerb-crawlers."

Updated: 10:29 Wednesday, February 23, 2005