'Adult services' lead to brothel closure in Queensbury
7:30am Wednesday 29th April 2009 in News
COPS have shut down a sex den in a semi-detached house in Queensbury.
Officers from Belmont Safer Neighbourhood Team raided the brothel on Thursday, April 23, and arrested three Eastern European women.
The house, in Honeypot Lane, was being used as a brothel behind the landlord's back, and police believe they have now shut the operation down for good.
During the raid, a 24-year-old Romanian woman, a 22-year-old Estonian woman, and a 22-year-old Lithuanian woman were arrested and questioned over their part in running the brothel.
The Romanian and Lithuanian women were both cautioned for facilitating prostitution, after admitting to cops they had both been answering the phone to punters and arranging appointments.
One man even tried to get into the brothel as police were questioning the women, but was scared away when he realised what was happening.
Sergeant Graham Couling, who led the raid, said his team had issued a closure notice six weeks ago and took action again after it became clear the brothel was still open for business.
He said: “It is an offence to sell your own body, and it is also an offence to assist in the running, managing, and controlling of a brothel.
“The problem with them is people attracted to brothels are banging on the door late at night, and they tend to be drunk and then there is the associated anti-social behaviour.
“When you have those kinds of issues around brothels, you have justify the reason to raid the brothel.”
The house in Honeypot Lane is one of a number of properties in Harrow being used for prostitution.
The Harrow Times' parent company Newsquest took the decision last year to stop printing adult services adverts as most of the notices, which still appear in other newspapers, are widely acknowledged as covers for brothels.
The Belmont Safer Neighbourhood Team used these adverts to launch its raid on the Honeypot Lane brothel after it changed its phone number.
Senior government figures last year raised the possibility of legalising some brothels as a way of tackling the problem of foreign women being trafficked into this country and forced into prostitution.
Harriet Harman, deputy Labour leader, said prostitution was “fuelling” human trafficking and floated the idea of banning prostitution altogether.
However, government plans have been shelved for the time being, with no change in legislation on the cards.
This leaves police facing the problem of gathering enough evidence on a brothel to conduct a raid and close it down, having to rely heavily on associated problems such as nuisance to neighbours and anti-social behaviour to get a warrant.
What do you think about brothels in Harrow? Do you know of one in your area? Should they be made legal? Post your thoughts below.
Suzanne Hammond says...
11:09am Wed 29 Apr 09
One sympathises with residents over noise and anti-social behaviour. However, brothels do not have to be noisy, nor do their clients have to be anti-social.
Such problems might be more easily, and less expensively, dealt with if the act of managing brothels ceased to be illegal. However, as proper management requires illegality, the law makes a rod for its own back.
Studies show sex workers are a great deal safer in brothels than on the street. The banning of brothels in 1885 caused the streets to be flooded with prostitutes and created ideal conditions for Jack the Ripper three years later. Let's hope the same does not happen in Harrow.