In September 2019, two Brazilian women, Ms O and Ms R, were working together in a flat for safety when they were raided by the police. The police confiscated their phones, ID, and money totaling around £1000 (without leaving a receipt). They were initially charged with brothel-keeping. The ECP organised informal translation from a woman […]
A sex worker received a letter from someone claiming to be a local mother. The letter outed her as a sex worker, threatened to inform her family about her job, accused her (wrongly) of running a brothel and threatened to report her to the police, included transphobic hate speech against her partner and threatened to drive […]
In 2015, a woman working for an NHS Trust was forced to resign under threat of immediate dismissal for “behaving in a manner that would not be acceptable in any situation” and “bringing the Trust into disrepute” following allegations that she advertised services on adult websites. Ms Molloy was a dedicated employee of the Trust […]
In May 2015, a Romanian woman was arrested for loitering for the purposes of prostitution while walking down a road in North London with a friend. The reason given by police for the arrest was that her friend was carrying condoms. She wanted to contest the charge because she wasn’t working at the time so […]
Sex workers in Mayfair have been part of the ECP’s network since 2009 when police raided flats without warrants, bullying and threatening prosecution. In the same year, Westminster Council threatened women with closure of the flats under planning law on the grounds that they were residential properties being used for a business. Then a few […]
In December 2013, 250 police raided sex worker’s flats in Soho (central London). Over 20 flats were closed and women were handcuffed and dragged in their underwear onto the streets. The ECP and Soho Working Girls organised intensively against the closures, getting legal advice and publicising the injustice of the raids. 18 of the 20 […]
In 2013, a sex worker challenged charges of having breached an Anti-social Behaviour Order (ASBO) banning her for 26 years from loitering in the London borough where she lives. With the support of the ECP which mounted a publicity campaign and helped her prepare for court, she was found not guilty! If she had been […]
In January 2012, Sheila Farmer was prosecuted for keeping/ managing a brothel (SOA 2003). Ms Farmer became a single mother at aged 23. With great difficulty she trained and got work as a computer programmer but after she lost her eyesight and developed a brain tumour as a result of childhood diabetes, she turned to sex work […]
In 2011, a 72 year old woman was charged with “keeping/managing a brothel” (SOA 2003) and money laundering. Despite a woman working in the flat confirming that she was there for her safety, the jury at Luton Crown Court found her guilty on both counts. It came out in court that she was the sole […]
In February 2011, Ms Lorraine Morris was convicted for “keeping/managing a brothel (SOA 2003). Ms Morris was arrested after she dialled 999 to report a serious attack on a woman in a flat used by her escort agency. Two identifiable men, one with a sawn-off shotgun up his sleeve, threw petrol about, threatening to torch […]