Memorandum submitted by Paula Byrne (PC 41)

 

To whom it may concern,

 

I am emailing in response to the Policing and Crime Bill Committee discussion on Thursday 5th February 2009.

 

I am the owner of an escort agency and as such employ 25 women across East Anglia. None of the ladies working for me have been trafficked, coerced or threatened in anyway. The ladies are all self employed and as we operate primarily on outcalls, the ladies do not even 'come in' to a work place on a regular basis and are free to live their own lives.

 

During the 7 years we have traded we have paid out taxes and our only encounter with the police is when they have benefited from information we have willingly given them due to the good working relationship we have developed.

 

The proposed Bill will force the industry to a darker place deep underground and on the streets where it will be impossible to police and put the girls at an even greater risk.

 

I would urge you strongly to reconsider the proposed Bill due the reason I have set out below -

 

1. Section 13? Criminalisation of clients? Will do nothing to stop violence or trafficking, but will play into the hands of traffickers by decreasing reporting by clients of anxieties about trafficking.

 

2. Drop section 20, which gives the police wide ranging powers to seal premises on suspicion (i.e. with no proof) that a wide of activities related to prostitution have happened or will happen. This will remove the protection of the law from many people in the indoor industry as people will not call the police if they know doing so risks closing the premises so we will suffer increased violence, robbery and rape.

 

3. In Milton Keynes alone the proposed law will put 50 girls immediately onto the streets to ply their trade. This will mean more policing required and an industry that was behind closed doors now very much in the public eye. Those ladies who decide to work independently will be in a concentrated area according foot fall and accessibility, thus creating a mini 'Soho' in every major and town and city in the country.

 

4. The effect on the economy, those ladies not wishing to enter into the price/client war of the 'market' this Bill will create will no doubt seek benefits from the government in their new found unemployment.

 

5. The basic Human Rights of an individual to work in a safe environment with people of their choosing. Not to be left on their own to the whims of whoever enters their home.

 

The government need to be forward thinking and address the real issues of trafficking. This Bill is freezing out the best source of information for the authorities to cultivate and tackle the real criminals.

 

February 2009