Media coverage
A young teen-age girl compelled Kay Mellor to write “Band of Gold,” a six-hour miniseries from Britain’s Granada Television about a group of prostitutes and how their lives change after one of them is brutally murdered.The adult thriller starring Geraldine James (“The Jewel in the Crown”) and Cathy Tyson (“Mona Lisa”) makes its American TV […]
Prostitutes succeed with prosecution after CPS refuses to pursue attacker for lack of evidence Sally Weale TWO prostitutes made legal history yesterday when a man who attacked them in separate incidents was convicted in the first private prosecution for rape in an English court. The Crown Prosecution Service had refused to pursue the case on […]
In the past few years toleration zones have been put forward as a form of legalisation which can be introduced without changing the law. Although such a proposal may be a reflection of growing public concern for prostitute women’s legal and civil rights, toleration zones would do little to protect these rights.Where toleration zones exist, […]
BRITISH TELECOM has been told to stop cutting off the telephone lines of prostitutes who use public telephone boxes to advertise their services.Since July, British Telecom has been trying to stop prostitutes putting cards and stickers in phone boxes by blocking incoming calls on the numbers advertised.Oftel, the telephone services watchdog, yesterday confirmed that it […]
Since 1981, when the English Collective of Prostitutes issued the first rights sheet for prostitute women in England and Wales, we have been taking up cases of false arrest and intimidation by police. In 1982, we occupied the Church of the Holy Cross in King’s Cross, London, for 12 days. We were inspired by […]
Letters: Vol. 2 No. 23 · 4 December 1980SIR: Rosemary Dinnage in her review of Prostitutes: Our Life (LRB, 18 September) does not escape society’s puritanism. Thus she confuses prostitution with prostitutes, and morality with the law. Despite compassion and a great effort to be balanced, she cannot hide her disgust and her distance from women who […]
Aileen BallantyneBrothel keeper Cynthia Payne, whose clients allegedly include vicars, barristers and a peer of the realm, has her sentence reduced to six monthsA 48 year-old “madame” whose brothel was said to be used by a peer of the realm, a member of the Irish Parliament, several vicars, barristers and solicitors, yesterday lost her appeal against a […]
A growing movement to decriminalize prostitution in Britain won its first significant victory today when the House of Commons voted to allow introduction of a bill that would make the law much less harsh on prostitutes.As a group of women representing a lobby for working prostitutes watched, applauded and shrieked their approval form the visitors’ […]