UK police accused by MPs of ‘cosying up’ to ‘pimping websites’

[scutty brown]

Vivastreet and other websites in the firing line again

External Link/Members Only

Senior police officers have “cosied up” to “pimping websites” that allegedly allow trafficked women to be “raped multiple times a day”, MPs have said.

Dame Diana Johnson, the chair of the home affairs select committee, said it was “disgraceful” that police forces and the National Crime Agency (NCA) were engaging with businesses such as Vivastreet.

Police officers were unable to tell the cross-party committee of MPs whether any prosecutions had resulted from working alongside such sites to gather intelligence of traffickers.

Johnson told Rob Jones, a director at the NCA: “You’re pursuing a strategy that seems to me to be cosying up and enabling adult service websites to carry on allowing trafficked women to be raped multiple times a day. I think it’s disgraceful.”

She also questioned why Home Office officials had attended an online adult services websites (ASWs) industry event, jointly organised with the NCA, last summer. Also in attendance were representatives of eurogirlsescort.com, according to reports.

Johnson said: “There was someone who was convicted as a trafficker, he was given an account by Vivastreet. A representative from that website was invited by the NCA to speak at a conference co-hosted by police … You’re having people that enable trafficking to your conference, and you’re saying that’s OK.”

Johnson and fellow MPs questioned the police’s strategy at a committee meeting investigating modern slavery.

Vivastreet is a classified website with an adult section where users can pay to advertise sexual services.

While it is legal for a sex worker to sell their services in the UK, pimps and people traffickers were accused by MPs of using the same online platform to pose as women and bring in punters.

Johnson claimed sites such as Vivastreet are “pimping websites” known to trade in trafficked women, and questioned why law enforcers are failing to clamp down on them.

She told representatives from the police, the NCA and the Crown Prosecution Service: “Criminal acts are taking place in plain sight. You’re having people from these adult service websites talk to your police officers, attend conferences and give a veneer that they’re working collaboratively with you.

“I’m really concerned that in plain sight their business model is a pimping website.”

She said the fact that multiple adverts on Vivastreet and similar sites are linked to the same phone numbers are “red flags” that pimps are using them to sell sex with victims of trafficking.

The Conservative MP Marco Longhi said Vivastreet should be banned because of the sale of trafficked women for sex.

“My understanding of the law is you can’t just go on to eBay and buy cocaine but through the likes of Vivastreet and others you can buy sex, which we know there are many, many victims,” he said. “So it seems like it’s OK for one criminal act and not the other.”

Jones, the director of threat leadership at the NCA, and director general of the National Economic Crime Centre, said the relationships were vital for harvesting information about traffickers. “It’s not a policy decision to cosy up to any of these companies,” he said.

“We haven’t cosied up to anyone, there’s a real tension and we welcome legislation to bring these companies to justice, that’s what we need,” he said.

In a later statement, Jones said: “Until there is a regulatory framework, law enforcement is forced to rely on voluntary engagement. Alongside partners, the NCA has engaged with a number of these companies in order to drive up reporting and information-sharing, improve standards and encourage better moderation. This has been done with the objectives of investigating offenders and safeguarding the vulnerable.

“Any evidence of involvement or criminality by companies would be rigorously investigated.”

In October 2018, the NCA and the Modern Slavery Police Transformation Unit (MSPTU) co-hosted a conference for police officers on “Investigative opportunities presented by adult services websites”.

One of the speakers invited to present at the conference was described by the MSPTU as a representative of “one of the largest classified advertising sites currently carrying adverts for sexual services”.

The Home Office has met representatives of Vivastreet on 15 occasions since 2017, according to a response to a parliamentary written question.

In 2018, the Paris public prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation against Vivastreet on charges of aggravated pimping, the MP Carolyn Harris told the committee last week.

At a previous hearing, Neelam Patankar, Vivastreet’s managing director, told the committee she was not in a position to discuss the status of the investigation. “For France, any interaction was prior to my position in post, I’m afraid. I am aware of the same information that you probably are. I cannot really give you anything more than that, unfortunately,” she said.

A Vivastreet spokesperson said: “Sex work is legal in the UK, and adult services websites like Vivastreet allow sex workers to advertise their services, vet clients, and access support. We work closely with police forces across the country to detect and report potential exploitation, and have helped secure a number of convictions.

“Vivastreet supports calls for better regulation of the sector to compel other sites to provide the same cooperation. As the senior police officers made clear to the committee, banning ASWs would not remove risks of exploitation, but would simply displace it further into encrypted messaging services and social media, where it is much harder to track and disrupt."

Vivastreet is living on borrowed time, and possibly Adultwork also

[jamiekinkxxx]

Unless they change the law and make prostitution illegal I am not sure how they can take down such sites.

I think the Police working with the sites to tackle the illegal parts of the sex industry (trafficking, pimping, forced work etc) is actually the right thing to do. I do agree that the sites should have more stringent compliance etc. to help the Police catch the darker players in this industry though.

Dame Diana Johnson (Labour MP) is just being making noise and not looking at it in a pragmatic way.

[signy]

Dame Diana Johnson (Labour MP) is just being making noise and not looking at it in a pragmatic way.

I do wonder if Johnson is really being totally pragmatic. She knows that (especially as a Labour MP) she has to keep the anti-prostitution activists happy, so she sounds off about advertising websites, calls for "something" to be done, and then kicks the can down the road until it is time for another statement saying exactly the same thing. Hopefully when she has moved on to another role and can't be held to account for the fact that nothing has actually been done. Just a thought.

[scutty brown]

Unless they change the law and make prostitution illegal I am not sure how they can take down such sites.

I think the Police working with the sites to tackle the illegal parts of the sex industry (trafficking, pimping, forced work etc) is actually the right thing to do. I do agree that the sites should have more stringent compliance etc. to help the Police catch the darker players in this industry though.

Dame Diana Johnson (Labour MP) is just being making noise and not looking at it in a pragmatic way.

That can only work if the sites are cooperative. It seems in reality they rarely are.

[randyrobert]

Dame Diana Johnson, was (and maybe still is) chair of the APPG (all party parliamentary group-a self selected group of MPs) on prostitution which has produced a number of reports favouring the Nordic model-not hard as they discount any contrary evidence..

She has now got herself elected as a chair of a real parliamentary group-the Home Affairs select committee where she is pursuing the same abolitionist agenda-this time trying to shut down adult service websites such as AW and Vivastreet claiming they are all about pimping trafficked women.

She has invited a lot of abolitionist mates to give evidence including Rhoda Grant an MSP who tried (and so far failed to get the Nordic model adopted in Scotland) and Ruth Breslin (ex Eaves, ex Ruhama) who was part of the successful campaign to get the Nordic model in Ireland.

If you go onto the Home Affais Select committee website (
External Link/Members Only ) you can watch some of the sessions of oral evidence-including the aggressive quesioning of the head of Vivastreet External Link/Members Only 

[Itsnotshy]

She has form for wanting the Nordic model and like a Terminator cannot be reasoned with and absolutely will not stop until....

[daviemac]

Political posts belong here. - https://www.ukpunting.com/index.php?topic=339931.0

[Blackpool Rock]

Vivastreet and other websites in the firing line again

External Link/Members Only

Vivastreet is living on borrowed time, and possibly Adultwork also

We all agree that more needs to be done to ensure safeguarding and to stop trafficked women etc but do these people trying to get these sites banned and implement the Nordic model honestly think punters and the girls they punt will simply give up and join a crochet class instead 

Ironically the effect of getting rid of the adverts in plain sight is that it simply serves to drive it underground where the authorities will find it harder to identify vulnerable people 

People would still find ways of advertising on the dark web etc, the other effect is that it could lead to an increase in street girls which is illegal or to a resurgence of parlours which is as we know legal for punters and largely tolerated by the police despite parlours being illegal

In fact bring it on as i'd love a vibrant parlour scene like we had 10 years ago with more decent girls working and at a fraction of the cost of AW 

[theejaculator]

Dame Diana Johnson, was (and maybe still is) chair of the APPG (all party parliamentary group-a self selected group of MPs) on prostitution which has produced a number of reports favouring the Nordic model-not hard as they discount any contrary evidence..

She has now got herself elected as a chair of a real parliamentary group-the Home Affairs select committee where she is pursuing the same abolitionist agenda-this time trying to shut down adult service websites such as AW and Vivastreet claiming they are all about pimping trafficked women.

She has invited a lot of abolitionist mates to give evidence including Rhoda Grant an MSP who tried (and so far failed to get the Nordic model adopted in Scotland) and Ruth Breslin (ex Eaves, ex Ruhama) who was part of the successful campaign to get the Nordic model in Ireland.

If you go onto the Home Affais Select committee website (
External Link/Members Only ) you can watch some of the sessions of oral evidence-including the aggressive quesioning of the head of Vivastreet External Link/Members Only

An actual interesting parliamentary video...had to laff when that pompous male mp said he'd never heard of Vivastreet...pull the other one Tim!

[Strawberry]

An actual interesting parliamentary video...had to laff when that pompous male mp said he'd never heard of Vivastreet...pull the other one Tim!

I am only just watching the video now, interesting to see how Teela Sanders comes across - and whether she is taken seriously.

[theejaculator]

I am only just watching the video now, interesting to see how Teela Sanders comes across - and whether she is taken seriously.

Who knows you might recognise a few regulars 

[Strawberry]

Who knows you might recognise a few regulars 

Or I might listen to the discussion, so far Vivastreet are receiving a grilling. Problem is as they've admitting they started from an uninformed position, even genuine independent SPs have problems with VS but VS  managed to ignore a few things about multiple  advertisers and look extremely dodgy as a result.

[scutty brown]

The Vivastreet MD is lying through her teeth

[Strawberry]

The Vivastreet MD is lying through her teeth

Is that a 'they know' vote?

[scutty brown]

Is that a 'they know' vote?

I hope they realise

I'm surprised they're talking so openly about TOEX - details of that are usually downplayed though there is a website
External Link/Members Only

[bops909]

The Vivastreet MD is lying through her teeth

None of the MPs are being particularly honest. Diane Johnson comes across as a nasty piece of work.

She gets highly agitated about a case study Viva street give as an example of them handling safeguarding issues and completely misrepresents the case study to score points against the MD.

And MP Tim is pushing a point of view about Albanian traffickers which he must know is unrealistic. Also gets away with a very dubious assumption about the nature of the sex trade without it being addressed.

[scutty brown]

None of the MPs are being particularly honest. Diane Johnson comes across as a nasty piece of work.

She gets highly agitated about a case study Viva street give as an example of them handling safeguarding issues and completely misrepresents the case study to score points against the MD.

And MP Tim is pushing a point of view about Albanian traffickers which he must know is unrealistic. Also gets away with a very dubious assumption about the nature of the sex trade without it being addressed.

Actually.......the supposed case study was BS. Johnson was right to rip it apart. VS pretty much ignore safeguarding issues.
And the Albanian example is exactly how the trafficking gangs work - except the girls probably come in using Romanian ID cards, not Albanian, even if they are Albanian

There was a lot of BS coming from the VS MD
Just some of the inaccuracies:
her claim that max four adverts per are allowed is wrong
her claim that men can't place adverts for women is wrong
her claim of only one underage girl got through the system is wrong - I'm aware of one last year, with others in previous years, and they're just the tip of the iceberg
identities are not checked or verified

Interestingly I checked VS listings just now for Johnson's constituency, Hull. 57 listed. Without doing any serious investigation and just by checking them visually I reckon around 30 of those are probable trafficking profiles, including six or seven duplicates. So around 23 trafficked girls out of 50. All on VS, the company which supposedly works so closely with the police and TOEX.

[bops909]

Actually.......the supposed case study was BS. Johnson was right to rip it apart. VS pretty much ignore safeguarding issues.

True, we only have VS word for it that the sequence of events in their case study actually happened, but, if it did, don't you  think VS acted appropriately ?

They were suspicious about a male asking about an advert, more so when he refused to allow VS to speak to the woman, they did some checks and told police.

Case Study 2:
A male customer phoned Vivastreet’s customer service team regarding an issue with an
online adult escort advertisement that he had placed on the platform. The customer service
agent requested to speak directly to the female advertised within the advert, as is a standard
procedure, and the male refused to allow the female to speak. This raised concerns for the
safety and autonomy of the female, by the customer services staff, who undertake extensive,
regular training to identify and address potential risks on the website.
Vivastreet carried out further investigative work, including looking into previous
advertisements posted from the same account and checking for any related
complaints/reported concerns. Staff attempted to contact the female advertised the following
day but were again refused access to her by a male. Vivastreet’s customer service and
safeguarding teams worked together to collate all associated information relating to this
account and compiled it into a single actionable report, which was then sent immediately to
relevant police force for urgent enquiries to be undertaken. The police force were grateful for
the information provided and undertook an urgent welfare visit to the location to speak with
the female advertised and seek to identify any causes for concern.

My point was that Johnson has read that, highlighted it in her copy that she waved about, but chose to pounce on the VS MD with a gotcha about males not being able to post adverts. She then went off on one about don't you know who signed this statement - well you wouldn't as there's no name and the signature is a scrawl.

I'm no fan of Vivastreet, and wouldn't ever see someone from there who didn't also have an AW profile, to be fair.