Sex Trafficking and Prostitution in
Ireland and the United Kingdom

 
 

Abstracts: April 2005

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01-Apr-05
Notorious massage parlour faces the axe
Crouch End Hill
Lanacombe (Massage Parlour)
Council bosses were scheduled to make a decision on renewing the license of "Lanacombe" a Crouch End massage parlour.  In September 2002, Josephine Daly was ordered to hand over more than £2million earned from Lanacombe and two other "saunas" after found guilty of smuggling women from Thailand and Eastern Europe.  The girls were required to provide sexual services to up to 1,500 men weekly.
Note: See Guardian Article Sept. 29, 2000

  • "Notorious massage parlour faces the axe" Ham and High Broadway
    http://hamhighbroadway.london24.net/broadway/
    news/story.aspx?brand=NorthLondon24&category=
    Newsbroadway&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=
    newsbroadway&itemid=WeED01 Apr 2005 11:17:22:503

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02-Apr-05
European governments get tough on immigration
Associated Press
Schengen open-borders agreement
According to this article:
Travelers arriving at one of EU's outer borders checked once, thereafter travel freely inside nearly all bloc nations.  Britain and Ireland  declined to join system, preferring control of cross-border flows as a national responsibility.

  • http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/
    0,1413,206~24533~2795948,00.html

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04-Apr-05
Judge praises teen prostitute's efforts to beat drugs
Ireland Online
Dublin
According to this article:
Case regarding teenage prostitute charged under section 7 of the Criminal Law Sexual Offences Act for loitering in a public place with intent to solicit or importune another person for the purposes of prostitution was heard before Judge Catherine Murphy, Children’s Court.

The Health Service Executive has devised a care plan to help her beat her heroin addiction.  The case was adjourned until May to allow the girl and her soliciter to scrutinise the plan.  HSE will provide assistance to the girl only until her 18th birthday later this year.

The teenager is currently residing in a care home, with supervised visits with her mother, who is being investigated for her involvement with her daughter's prostitution. The court had heard that her mother and little sister, aged six, were present when she was engaged in an act of prostitution in a laneway with a 50-year-old man.

  • http://breakingnews.iol.ie/?j=138868082&p=y38868788/

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06-Apr-05
Moldovia to step up anti-trafficking measures
Radio Free Europe
According to this article:
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin met with Jean Fournet, NATO's deputy secretary-general for public diplomacy and afterward announced plans to open an anti-trafficking center to curb human smuggling.  He also requested international monitoring of the Transdniester section of the Moldova-Ukraine border, and said that international controls there "would put a barrier to smuggling, trafficking in people and weapons so typical of that region."

Note: See later article: Nov. 27, 2005. David Harrison of the Telegraph reporting from Skopje: "Revealed: kept in a dungeon ready to be sold as slaves...the women destined for Britain's sex trade"

  • http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2005/04/060405.asp

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07-Apr-05
New EU States To Join Schengen Open-Border Agreement In 2007
Radio Free Europe
Breffni O'Rourke
Schengen open-borders agreement
According to this article:
Travelers arriving at one of EU's outer borders checked once, thereafter travel freely inside nearly all bloc nations.  Britain and Ireland  declined to join system, preferring control of cross-border flows as a national responsibility.

  • http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/4/F3403F9E-5BD7-4F74-8504-7395A7A10FE2.html

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10-Apr-05
Family ran £4 million brothel empire
Life Style Extra
London and Essex
According to this article:
Edward Day is on trial at Southwark Crown Court.  Day  owned massage parlours and split profits with his brother Alan. Sons Teddy and Steve ran "massage parlours" - seven total in London and Essex.  They were arrested in July 2004 and pleaded guilty in March 2005.  The arrests occurred after an undercover police investigation in which officers found Eastern European sex slaves.  Officers responded to ads in a London paper and were offered full sex and other services including anal sex. Undercover surveillance saw up to 36 punters per day.

Others involved are Richard White, Nicholas Slesser, and Philip Culleton. Culleton's girlfriend, Linda Lee, worked as a maid in some of the premises. Sentencing is scheduled for April 18.

  • http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=
    RP1011309J&news_headline=family_ran_
    %C2%A34_million_brothel_empire


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13-Apr-05
Amnesty urges EU to accept anti-trafficking convention
Business Travellers Against Human Trafficking
According to this article:
Concern that the EU is pressing for clauses to be added to the draft COE Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings which would permit EU member states to apply existing or future European Community or EU rules rather than the applicable COE standards set out in the treaties.

  • http://www.businesstravellers.org/archives/amnesty
    -urges-eu-to-accept-anti-trafficking-convention/

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13-Apr-05
Vice girl tolerance zone Bill hit by third delay
The Scotsman

Scottish Parliament debate originally scheduled for April 2005 delayed until October 2005 to allow parliament's local government committee to consider Scottish Exec. response to expert group report.

  • http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=390112005

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14-Apr-05
Brothel attack: Youth in court: Wimbledon teenager faces charges of raping prostitute
Wimbledon Guardian
According to this article:
17 year old in court. Sexual assault with pistol and then rape. Violent gang rape of "foreign sex worker".  (Note: Is there an investigation into immigration status of victim?)

  • http://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/news/localnews/
    display.var.587894.0.brothel_attack_youth_in_court_
    wimbledon_teenager_faces_charges_of_raping_
    prostitute.php

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14-Apr-05
Libel Damages for Relief Worker
The Scotsman
Jan Colley
According to this article:
False report regarding child trafficking by freelance journalist Dominic Hipkins, and investigative journalist Graham Johnson.

  • http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4398906

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14-Apr-05
Madam guilty
This Is Hertfordshire
Alex Galbinski
North Finchley
Brothels: Finchley Follies, Lucindas, Whetstone Wenches
According to this article:
Former Metro police officer,  Simon de Freitas,  passed secret info from police databases to girlfriend, brothel owner Linda Stanton. He pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office and has resigned from the Police Service.  He faced 15 charges including aiding and abetting the exercise of control of a prostitute and living on prostitution.  de Freitas had been based at Highbury Vale station in Islington and checked police databases to find out what police knew about Stanton and her businesses.

Stanton pleaded guilty to exercising control over a prostitute for gain and possessing a prohibited weapon (a CS gas canister.) Brothel receptionist claimed 3 police officers were regulars at brothels.  Documentation found by police showed Stanton took 50% of charges for sexual services.  Receipts showed 90,000 deposited in her bank account although police suspect she made much more. Envelopes with nearly 6,000 cash were found in her car.

A receptionist at one of the brothels said that she was aware of three policemen who were regulars at the brothel.  She was told on her interview that Stanton's boyfriend was a policeman.  She said that the prostitutes saw between 8 and 20 clients a day.

Sentencing will take place at Harrow Crown Court on May 5.

  • http://www.thisishertfordshire.co.uk/misc/
    print.php?artid=587702

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16-Apr-05
Brothel attack: Youth in court
This is Local London
Tooting
According to this article:
17 yr old boy charged with raping a prostitute
after sexually assaulting her with the barrel of a handgun. Allegedly one of a gang of men who raided a brothel, robbed a client and carried out a gang rape.

  • http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/
    misc/print.php?artid=588449

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17-Apr-05
Winners announced at the British Academy Television Awards
The Scotsman
Sherna Noah and Rachel Williams
"Sex Traffic"
According to this article:
Channel 4 series about trafficked eastern Europeans Best actress and best drama serial. Granada Production for Channel 4/co-produced with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation /C4.

  • http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4415070

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18-Apr-05
More children being trafficked in Europe
Business Travellers Against Human Trafficking
According to this article:
OSCE told that number of child sex workers in Europe growing. Estimated that around one third of victims are under 18.

  • http://www.businesstravellers.org/archives/more-children-being-trafficked-in-europe/

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18-Apr-05
Were these missing girls sold for sex?
Northern Echo
Linsay Jennings
According to this article:

Three teenage girls who disappeared from the North-East are believed to have been forced into a London prostitution network. On Easter Sunday, Mei Fang Weng, 15, Xiu Ming Lin and Yun Jen He, both 16,arrived at Newcastle Airport from Paris.  They held false Japanese passports and said they wanted to claim asylum after they were stopped by immigration officials.  They were put into social services care and housed at Elswick Lodge until they vanished 3 days later. Fears are that they have been sucked into the sex trade.

Linsay Jennings goes onto to discuss sex trafficking.  Trafficking convictions are rare. Difficult to prosecute due to jurisdictions, reluctance of girls to testify etc. New UK law in effect since May 2004. First convictions: Albanians Taulant Merdanaj (18 yr. sentence) and Elidon Bregu (9 yr. sentence.)

Quote (re: traffickers):

"They pick on a tier of society that is most vulnerable and somebody offering money for their beautiful daughter will be welcomed with open arms. "Some girls, particularly the Eastern Europeans, believe that they're going into high class prostitution or to work in high-class restaurants, essentially that they're going to be looked after. Others don't have any idea what they're getting into at all."  - Juliet Singer, head of police liaison with the National Missing Persons charity

  • Missing Persons first became concerned about people trafficking in the mid-1990s - West African women being trafficked.
     
  • Around 80 per cent of the 8,000 prostitutes working in London's brothels, saunas and massage parlours are foreign nationals, mainly from eastern Europe and south-east Asia.
     
  • Victims
    • usually come from war-torn countries or countries hit by disaster (i.e. the Indonesian tsunami)
    • Passports/travel documents are confiscated
    • frequently live in squalid conditions
    • Sold between brothels
    • some girls as young as 12 years old
    • Raped, beaten and threatened on a daily basis
    • work up to 24 hours a day, having sex with up to 25 men
    • average 16-year-old can earn around £300,000 to £400,000 a year for her pimp - women rarely receive any of the money - pays to pimp for "debt bondage" to which pimp adds food, rent condoms etc.
    • Girls who escape often have STDs - nowhere to go
      • Poppy Project - 25 residential places but by Feb 2005, already housed 250
  • Traffickers
    • use smaller airports (i.e. Newcastle, Manchester, Belfast or Cardiff) or boats.
       
  • Punters
    • attracted to foreign prostitutes -  £30 for unprotected, often rough sex
    • young flesh

The National Missing Persons Trafficking Helpline can be contacted on 0808 800 7070.

  • http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/ the_north_east/features/FEATURES2.html

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19-Apr-05
Ulster kids targets for prostitution
Belfast Telegraph
According to this article:

After receiving "worrying reports" about child sex abuse, Northern Ireland's Children's Commissioner Nigel Williams issued a warning that children in Northern Ireland are being targeted by criminals attempting to involve them in prostitution.

Williams expressed concern about drug taking and other dangerous activities and appealed to children and young people to contact child welfare organizations.  He said that through new legislation such as the Sexual Offences Act, and including the new Risk of Sexual Harm Orders, there are more ways that statutory agencies can prevent this from continuing or starting.

The NI Children's Commission has been liaising with the PSNI and organisations like Barnardos and the NSPCC to promote an effective response to child sexual abuse.

Source: Hutton, Brian "Ulster kids targets for prostitution"
Belfast Telegraph Apr. 19, 2005.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/
story.jsp?story=630921


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