A stunning development across the pond!  Read more at The Telegraph…

Brothels and prostitutes to be banned from advertising
By Heidi Blake

Massage parlours and escort agencies will be banned from advertising their services in newspapers under Government plans to stifle the sex industry.

Publications carrying advertisements for prostitution could be fined £10,000 under the new law, which will be put forward in Labour’s election manifesto.

The assault on the sex industry is being led Harriet Harman, the women’s minister, and Vera Baird, the solicitor general, amid concerns that many of the advertisements are offering women who have been forced into prostitution by criminal gangs.

A request by the Newspaper Society to remove the adverts in 2008 has had only partial success, with many publications continuing to print them.

The Crown Prosecution Service has already studied a similar law in Ireland and concluded that it could work in the UK.

Mrs Baird said: “It is now appropriate to move against people who make money from advertising prostitutes. The Newspaper Society tightened its guidance on taking such ads but there is still a market that we now have to look to legislation to disrupt.”

A survey of London’s sex industry commissioned in 2008 by Poppy Project, a government-funded group that helps trafficked women, estimated that the 921 brothels it examined made at least £86m a year through their newspaper advertisements alone.

The new law would set clear guidelines about which advertisements will be banned by defining the difference between brothels masquerading as massage parlours and spas offering therapeutic massages.

Advertisements for sex phone lines, carried in many tabloid newspapers, would not fall under the law unless they were a front for arranging prostitution.

It would also become a criminal offence to print cards advertising prostitutes for distribution in telephone boxes and shop windows. Under the current law, it is only an offence to be caught in the act of posting such a card.

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.

Read more at The News & Star…

Carlisle prostitutes sex site sparks political storm

A website which allows men to rate Cumbrian prostitutes is at the centre of a political row about whether the internet is fuelling demand for the sex trade.

The site lists around 18 prostitutes in the Carlisle area complete with mobile phone numbers with others listed around Cumbria including Keswick, Barrow, Kendal and the Lake District.

Postings go back several years with the most recent added last month.

The American-based service then allows men to write about their experiences with the prostitutes.

The Cumbrian “reviews” go into the most intimate details.

Many boast at being allowed to have sex without a condom and one young woman is criticised for appearing to be shy and refusing some requests.

Prices and locations are also listed with one man describing a liaison in Botchergate’s Ibis hotel and another detailing an encounter in a Lakes cottage.

Attention has been focused on the website since Harriet Harman used her speech at the Labour Party Conference last week to describe it as a “sinister development”.

Liberal UK Labour Party bigwig Harriet Harman urges Gov. Schwarzenegger to shut down the California-based PunterNet. Arnold no doubt wonders how the heck he got involved in all of this! Read more at The Guardian…

Harman urges Schwarzenegger to ‘terminate’ prostitute website

Harriet Harman today urged movie star and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to “terminate” a website which allows people to rate prostitutes.

The Labour deputy leader told delegates at the Labour conference: “There is now a website… where pimps put women on sale for sex and then men who’ve had sex with them put their comments online. It is PunterNet and fuels the demand for prostitutes.”

Harman said the site was based in California but had “pages and pages” of women for sale in London.

“I’ve raised it with the US ambassador to London and I’ve called on California’s governor, Arnie Schwarzenegger, to close it down.”

Harman said it should not be difficult for the star to “terminate PunterNet”.

“And I’ve got news for him: if he doesn’t, I’ll be back,” she quipped.

Harman said the British government had made “determined progress towards equality” in the past 12 months.

“It’s been a year of promises made and promises kept,” she said. “For us, for Labour, equality is not just a slogan it’s what we’re about.

Read the story at The Mirror…

Sophie Anderton: I was a £15k prostitute
by Allison Martin

Recalling the first time she was paid for sex, she said: “It was all over in two minutes. I lay there thinking, ‘Is that it? For £15k, is that it?’” Sophie, 32, said: “For a short while I sold my body for a lot of money. I’m not proud of it.”

At the time she was drinking a bottle of vodka every night and using cocaine every day.

She said she turned to prostitution after an introduction from a pal when her money ran out and she needed to pay her dealer.

But she decided to quit after a bad experience with a fat businessman who made her feel “sick”.

She said: “I had slept with five men and made more than £50,000, which paid my drug debts and a deposit on a flat. Now I could escape.”

Read more at lep.co.uk…

‘Prostitute man’ was followed and robbed

Detectives are probing a suspected robbery “set up” after a gang attacked a man on his driveway after watching a prostitute get into his car.

It is thought the group of robbers was watching or using prostitutes to proposition men who members then followed and tried to extort money from.

Investigating officers believe more men could have been targeted by the same group, but have not reported incidents because of how it may look to their families.

The man did not use the sex worker and asked her to get out of his car, but was then followed home and attacked by a group of robbers who were believed to have been watching the woman.

A glimpse into the life of a prostitute. They bear the risk of dangers of the business, too. Read more at The Sunday Sun…

Prostitution was just a nightmare
by Mieka Smiles

AFTER a WPC was jailed for leading a double life as a £100-an-hour call girl, one former sex worker lifts the lid about her time on the streets. MIEKA SMILES reports.

I WAS just 19 and was still living at home.

My parents didn’t know I was a prostitute; of course they had heard things but I always denied it.

I always worked for myself, with a friend. Sometimes we would get 20 calls a night and visit up to 10 men between us.

I got into it through a friend whose mother had girls working for her. She knew a lot of people. If she got me someone then I would give her a cut of what I earned.

Clients would ring me on my mobile and I would go to their homes. Then they would give my number to their colleagues and their friends – it just used to get passed around.

A friend gave me heroin when I was 18. I didn’t know what it was until it was too late, until I had a habit. I needed it every day after that.

The reason I got into prostitution was through heroin.

I needed the money as I was on around an eighth a day which costs around £140.

I didn’t want to shoplift or burgle houses. With prostitution the only person that you’re hurting is yourself and no one else. The only victim is you.

I can still remember the first time. It was horrible. I ran out and left the money. It got easier after that. In fact it got to the point when I didn’t even think about it; it was just another job.

I have been in some awful situations; we have been locked in, attacked and had our money stolen from us by clients.

Read more at Journal Live…

ARRESTS AFTER 18-MONTH INVESTIGATION
by Dan Warburton

A LONG-RUNNING sting led police to smash Neil Lock’s organised prostitution business.

For 18-months police officers carried out covert investigations to close down on Lock and land six criminals in the dock.

Yesterday the court heard Natalie Lock, who is the mother of Neil’s two children, aged eight and 10, had split from her husband and now lives in Devon, nearer her family. She was given a 51-week suspended jail sentence after admitting managing prostitutes and brothels, and perverting the course of justice. The Locks also ran NG House, a three-storey brothel in Bury, which the court heard Greater Manchester Police tolerated. It was run by Neil Lock’s 60-year-old father Nigel.

All three previously admitted charges relating to running brothels. Nigel Lock, of Bolton, was fined £415; Marks was fined £765 and Bartle £515. Neil Lock also admitted possessing class A drugs and an unlicensed firearm. The court heard all the defendants except Thorne will face Proceeds of Crime Act hearings later.

Times are tough in the UK, prompting this constable to turn to the world’s oldest profession.  Read more at NewKerala.com…

UK cop claims low police salary forced her into prostitution!

A UK cop, who was exposed for moonlighting as a hooker, has claimed that she was forced into prostitution because of the low police salary.

The policewoman had taken paid maternity leave, but she was instead caught working as a 150 pound-an-hour escort.

She quit Thames Valley Police hours after she was revealed by a reporter of the British tabloid the Sun of offering full sex on an appointment, and of promising to wear a police uniform if he booked a second session.

The mum of one, from Warfield, Berks, is estimated to have been earning 25,000 pounds a year on the force.

“Not long after my child’’s birth I realised I would not be able to pay the mortgage, the bills and all I could have wanted for my daughter on the income that I had,” the Sun quoted her as saying.

“So I decided to get involved in escorting.

“My plan was to return to work after a year’’s maternity leave, only part of which would be paid,” she said.

Getting out of the business is very possible, but it is also a very challenging road.  Read about one Northampton, UK working girl’s personal odyssey at The BBC News…

From prostitute to legal secretary
By Jane Elliott

Just over a year ago Jo was a prostitute in Northampton.

She faced daily abuse and violence and had been badly beaten by customers.

Her four children had all been taken away from her and she was addicted to crack cocaine after seven years of selling sex.

Today she is finally free of drugs, off the streets and due to start a course to train as a legal secretary.

Off the street

She credits her change in fortune to local organisation Sex Workers Around Northampton (Swan), which aims to get female sex workers off the street.

In the past five years, Swan – funded by several partners, including Northamptonshire County Council, the primary care trust and drug support groups – has encouraged between 120 to 150 women like Jo to give up prostitution.

“I started working on the streets in my 20s and I am in my mid-30s now,” said Jo.

“I used to see the Swan team giving out condoms and used to speak to them.

“It was getting very dangerous on the streets and I had been attacked a few times. I got a broken jaw and broken heel in attacks and there came a time when enough was enough.