What if someone made a startling confession and nobody cared? She was better off as anonymous. Read more at The Jackson Sun…

British scientist says she penned call-girl blog

A British scientist says she is Belle de Jour, the anonymous blogger whose accounts of life as a call girl were turned into books and a TV series.

Brooke Magnanti was quoted by the Sunday Times as saying she decided to reveal her secret because she was afraid an ex-boyfriend would expose her.

Magnanti, 34, is a child health researcher at the University of Bristol in western England. She told the newspaper she turned to the sex trade in 2003 while finishing her Ph.D. and worked as an escort for more than a year.

She blogged about the experience in the guise of Belle de Jour, a legal secretary who moonlights as a sex worker.

The blog formed the basis of three books and the British TV series “Secret Diary of a Call Girl,” shown on Showtime in the United States.

Debate swirled about whether the anonymous author was real or fictional, and Belle de Jour was accused by some of glamorizing prostitution.

This poor slob was just out looking for love and got caught in an embarrassing situation.  Read the whole story at This Is Bristol…

Bristol kerb crawler, 74, caught with trousers down

A 74-year-old Bristol man was caught with his pants down when police found him cavorting with a prostitute in his car.

The man had already been warned twice about driving around in the early hours in areas of St Paul’s where prostitutes were on the streets.

Yet he ignored the advice – and an Acceptable Behaviour Contact (ABC) he had signed a month before – by picking up a sex worker in Portland Square on June 5.

Bristol magistrates heard that when officers pulled up alongside the ex-soldier’s grey Toyota Yaris at about 3.30am, they saw a woman looking startled in his front passenger seat.

Giving evidence at his trial, PC Andrew Dino said he went to the driver’s window to ask him what he was up to, noticed his shorts were “down around his thighs”, and he was frantically trying to pull them back up. Meanwhile, a woman who was a known prostitute got out and walked off, wearing only a pink top and no underwear.

The man, a member of the exclusive Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), said he was only in the area listening to the cricket and sport on the radio.

But he was convicted and fined for soliciting a woman for prostitution, in a way likely to cause nuisance or annoyance to people in the neighbourhood.

Read more at This Is Bristol…

Funding helps former Bristol prostitutes

A safe house in Bristol for former prostitutes and their children has benefited from almost £200,000 of Government funding.

Naomi House has been running for six months from an undisclosed location in the city to help women get back on their feet after working on the streets.

It is the first service of its kind to be set up in the UK and staffing has now been secured for the next two years as a result of a £187,051 grant from the Government’s Parenting Fund.

So far four women have been helped by the service, which is run from the St Paul’s-based One25 Project, which helps street workers with health advice, emotional support and food and drug counselling.

Naomi House is a safe place for women to live with their children once they have decided to turn their backs on drugs and prostitution.

It enables them to rebuild their lives and learn new skills that will enable them to set up home with their children and make a fresh start.