Victory For Sex Workers Taken To Court For Keeping Each Other Safe

[peter purves]

In this case the women, who are both migrants, had prioritised their safety and were sending money back to Brazil to support their families.

The pair believe they were reported by a vindictive client who had attempted to extort free sex from them.

Determined to fight the case and backed by the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), the women pleaded not guilty during a hearing at North Surrey Magistrates Court.

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[cotton]

Well done the English Collective of Prostitutes for supporting these women.
Since neither of these women was on the tenancy and the CPS is supposedly mainly after the people involved in the organisation and financial benefiting from sexual exploitation i wonder why the authorities didnt pursue who was on the lease and leave these women alone as their own guidelines would seem to suggest, maybe they coudnt get the person/s on the lease and the women were non-co-operative so the police and CPS decided to prosecute and seize their money vindictivly as a way of punishment.
Criminalising SPS working together for safety just brings the police , CPS and the law into contempt.

[Colston36]

Well done the English Collective of Prostitutes for supporting these women.
Since neither of these women was on the tenancy and the CPS is supposedly mainly after the people involved in the organisation and financial benefiting from sexual exploitation i wonder why the authorities didnt pursue who was on the lease and leave these women alone as their own guidelines would seem to suggest, maybe they coudnt get the person/s on the lease and the women were non-co-operative so the police and CPS decided to prosecute and seize their money vindictivly as a way of punishment.
Criminalising SPS working together for safety just brings the police , CPS and the law into contempt.

Totally agree.

[Plan R]

Interesting article, hope the case sets helpful precedents for SPs and punters.
Precedents that sex-industry-hating nth wave feminists can choke on.
 

[PatMacGroin]

Well done the English Collective of Prostitutes for supporting these women.
Since neither of these women was on the tenancy and the CPS is supposedly mainly after the people involved in the organisation and financial benefiting from sexual exploitation i wonder why the authorities didnt pursue who was on the lease and leave these women alone as their own guidelines would seem to suggest, maybe they coudnt get the person/s on the lease and the women were non-co-operative so the police and CPS decided to prosecute and seize their money vindictivly as a way of punishment.
Criminalising SPS working together for safety just brings the police , CPS and the law into contempt.

Interesting article. There are some pertinent details missing which make it hard to get a clear idea of the whole story. I agree that it was good that the ECP were able to give them support. Otherwise it probably would have been very difficult for these women to defend themselves, and everyone should be entitled to put up a decent legal defence.

However, the section I've highlighted does make me question how innocent those women were:

"maybe they coudnt get the person/s on the lease and the women were non-co-operative so the police and CPS decided to prosecute and seize their money"

With the detail taken from the article:

"The women, Ms O and Ms R, were raided by police on September 19 and charged with “managing a brothel” – even though neither woman’s name was actually on the tenancy of the Surrey property."

The missing details about what the actual arrangements of the tenancy were make it pretty hard to understand the full circumstances.

- Why wasn't the legal tenant also being prosecuted?
- The property owner would be stated on the land registry. The owner should have no reason not disclose the legal tenants details. Although it's also not always easy to trace owners via land registry details alone.
- If the WG's weren't co-operating by providing the legal tenants info, then why not?
- it's the relationship between the legal tenant and these WG's which could be the determining factor of if the behaviour was criminal. If s/he had some level of control or influence over them, particularly if that also included a financial benefit then that would make the arrangement a brothel.
- If it was a brothel, then it's right that the authorities were trying to withhold the earnings discovered there, preventing them from making their way into the hands of the "legal tenant/pimp".

The concern would be, that if this particular arrangement can't be prosecuted, then pimps would soon be using it to coerce vulnerable women to work for them outside of the reach of the law.

[cotton]

Interesting article. There are some pertinent details missing which make it hard to get a clear idea of the whole story. I agree that it was good that the ECP were able to give them support. Otherwise it probably would have been very difficult for these women to defend themselves, and everyone should be entitled to put up a decent legal defence.

However, the section I've highlighted does make me question how innocent those women were:

"maybe they coudnt get the person/s on the lease and the women were non-co-operative so the police and CPS decided to prosecute and seize their money"

With the detail taken from the article:

"The women, Ms O and Ms R, were raided by police on September 19 and charged with “managing a brothel” – even though neither woman’s name was actually on the tenancy of the Surrey property."

The missing details about what the actual arrangements of the tenancy were make it pretty hard to understand the full circumstances.

- Why wasn't the legal tenant also being prosecuted?
- The property owner would be stated on the land registry. The owner should have no reason not disclose the legal tenants details. Although it's also not always easy to trace owners via land registry details alone.
- If the WG's weren't co-operating by providing the legal tenants info, then why not?
- it's the relationship between the legal tenant and these WG's which could be the determining factor of if the behaviour was criminal. If s/he had some level of control or influence over them, particularly if that also included a financial benefit then that would make the arrangement a brothel.
- If it was a brothel, then it's right that the authorities were trying to withhold the earnings discovered there, preventing them from making their way into the hands of the "legal tenant/pimp".

The concern would be, that if this particular arrangement can't be prosecuted, then pimps would soon be using it to coerce vulnerable women to work for them outside of the reach of the law.

Pat i dont think theres much ambiguity or disagreement over if it was a brothel or if these women were operating on the wrong side of the law. Under the law as it exists today women working together for safety does constitute a brothel and is illegal , irrespective of the involvement of any 3rd party.
Obviously the police and cps have a wide latitude in there approach to enforcement which basically equates to an informal regulation of brothels based on police hedgemony,  which imho is kinda 1984ish, prohibitive laws with everyone living in fear of the police , better have a sensible law whereby prostitution is clearly regulated and licensed , trafficking and exploitation are defacto illegal in any case so thats not an issue. And sex workers working together can do so without the constant fear of harrassment .
Re ; the default vilification of pimps/agencies, like employment agencies operating in other areas whats wrong with 3rd parties providing services and support to sex workers. Sexual exploitation / trafficking is illegal anyway so the police have the tools to do their job , why blanket criminalise everyone involved behind the scenes in sex work.
Re - your concerns about vulnerable women being exploited essentially it boils down to if they are exploited (and willing to give evidence) there is a case for the police to prosecute , you could remove the whole antiquated "brothel" question and their is still a case to prosecute where vulnerable women are exploited. The "brothel" law is just penalises all sex workers and robs them of the legal opportunity to work safely , which cant be right.
As you suggest , one viewpoint is that the brothel law does allow the police to disrupt sex operations which are not in their judgement desireable and where they cannot obtain any cooperative witnesses , but then again thats just basically giving the police free hand to do as they wish at the cost of sex workers safety.
Id rather the law prioritise the safety of women and the police were required to work around narrower laws but still nevertheless able to combat trafficking and exploitation.

[PatMacGroin]

Pat i dont think theres much ambiguity or disagreement over if it was a brothel or if these women were operating on the wrong side of the law. Under the law as it exists today women working together for safety does constitute a brothel and is illegal , irrespective of the involvement of any 3rd party.
Obviously the police and cps have a wide latitude in there approach to enforcement which basically equates to an informal regulation of brothels based on police hedgemony,  which imho is kinda 1984ish, prohibitive laws with everyone living in fear of the police , better have a sensible law whereby prostitution is clearly regulated and licensed , trafficking and exploitation are defacto illegal in any case so thats not an issue. And sex workers working together can do so without the constant fear of harrassment .
Re ; the default vilification of pimps/agencies, like employment agencies operating in other areas whats wrong with 3rd parties providing services and support to sex workers. Sexual exploitation / trafficking is illegal anyway so the police have the tools to do their job , why blanket criminalise everyone involved behind the scenes in sex work.
Re - your concerns about vulnerable women being exploited essentially it boils down to if they are exploited (and willing to give evidence) there is a case for the police to prosecute , you could remove the whole antiquated "brothel" question and their is still a case to prosecute where vulnerable women are exploited. The "brothel" law is just penalises all sex workers and robs them of the legal opportunity to work safely , which cant be right.
As you suggest , one viewpoint is that the brothel law does allow the police to disrupt sex operations which are not in their judgement desireable and where they cannot obtain any cooperative witnesses , but then again thats just basically giving the police free hand to do as they wish at the cost of sex workers safety.
Id rather the law prioritise the safety of women and the police were required to work around narrower laws but still nevertheless able to combat trafficking and exploitation.

That's why it's an interesting case.

The plaintiffs were clearly breaking the law as it currently stands.  But somehow the ECP managed to get the CPS to progressively down grade the charges until in the end they dropped them altogether on the day of the hearing. (Thinking about it again, all those comments about the legal tenant were a bit of a red herring. Although I thought they could have been a justifiable reason for the CPS to insist on withholding the seized cash.)

Why did the CPS drop the case? Did they think they were going to lose? Or was it all just too much bad publicity for them (appearing to be the ones victimising these women)?

If a landmark case changes the legal understanding of what constitutes a brothel, to exclude one where WG's are "working together for safety", that could have a big impact on how the Police and the CPS have to handle these cases. If the weight of public opinion is pushing things in that direction it would probably be better for the statues to be reviewed, rather than let the law in this area get thrown into chaos by some rogue decisions by a few progressive judges.

The best way to protect women working in the sex trade would be to introduce effective regulation. Unfortunately, there won't be many politicians that want to be known for legalising prostitution and effectively kicking off the gold rush for a main stream sex selling industry in the UK.

But we are getting there gradually. I think it's only a matter of time before the UK adopts laws that look more like those in the Netherlands and Germany.

(Re Vilification of Pimps/Agencies, I think that's largely a matter of marketing. "Agencies" sounds more respectable than "pimps", even a "Madame" always evoked a more acceptable image even though it only really means female pimp. Say an "Agency" portrays a good image, appears to be professionally run, with well presented staff/management. That's an image that appears more acceptable to the general public than the mental vision of a stereotypical "pimp", e.g. a rough looking bruiser of a guy, visibly seething with pent up rage.)

[s0whatsnew?]

What froths my blood in the MSN story is that the police seized the money WITHOUT GIVING A RECEIPT.  I would have thought that it was a reasonable legal defence that the seizure was therefore illegal and that the CPS picking on that particular amount was therefore completely arbitrary and not based on any justifiable figure.

Its interesting that usually a cash seizure is the other way around;  the cops keep a wedge for themselves and charge the unfortunates with a lesser amount.  Because its in the accused's interests to plead towards a lesser amount they keep silent as to the true amount.  So the cops have a nice little earner.

I once had to hang around in a magistrates court during the lunch hour and happened to overhear a bunch of CPS lawyers -young trainees- conferring amoungst themselves re the afternoon list.  They seemed closer to a pack of jackals divvying up the spoils than human beings.