Late sex worker’s assault claim case reopened by Garda
IRISH police have reopened an investigation into a complaint made by sex work activist Laura Lee, who died earlier this year.
It is understood friends of Ms Lee have been contacted by Garda reopening an investigation into an alleged sexual assault.
Ms Lee, who was at the forefront of sex worker advocacy in Northern Ireland and the Republic, had made a statement to police in Dublin about the alleged incident last November.
The investigation was closed following her death at the age of 44 in February.
However, The Times reported that the Garda is now in the process of taking statements again.
A spokesman said it was “not the policy of An Garda Siochana to comment on named individuals”.
Ms Lee, from Dublin, was living in Glasgow at the time of her death.
She had been due to take a High Court challenge against a Northern Ireland law making it illegal to pay for sex.
We are currently the only UK region to make the purchase of sex a criminal offence, following the introduction of the law that was championed by DUP peer and former MLA Lord Morrow.
Ms Lee crowdfunded more than £7,000 from clients, other sex workers and friends to secure a judicial review of this law, aiming to get the legislation repealed.
A judge at Belfast High Court ruled that Ms Lee had an arguable case that the law was a breach of her human rights to privacy and freedom of expres- sion. She had argued that making it illegal to pay for sex would make her job more dangerous.
While the law shifts the burden from prostitutes to clients, sex workers believe i t could leave them more vulnerable to violence.
Ms Lee’s legal team argued that the amendments to the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act breached her human rights entitlements to privacy and freedom from discrimination. They also alleged a failure to comply with equality law.
“People are not willing to use online booking forms or divulge their details. Everyone suddenly became ‘John’. There hasn’t been a reduction in demand but it is far more difficult to keep myself safe,” Ms Lee said in April 2017.
“They are using hotel phones, for example, to contact sex workers in Belfast rather than leaving their personal mobiles. This means if one of them turns violent there is no longer any real traceability to help the police track such clients down. Men are doing this because they fear entrapment and arrest due to this law.
“So in a sense the law is actually putting sex workers at greater risk than before, when there was some ability to trace and track down any client that was violent and abusive.
“The law to protect women in the sex trade has done the opposite of what it was intended to do. Every escort I know working in Belfast now insists on working side by side with another woman for protection.
“The law has not in any way reduced demand and supply, which is still the same. It has only driven the business further underground.”
Her solicitor Ciaran Moynagh had described Ms Lee as a fearless human rights campaigner.
In 2014 Ms Lee helped to influence the PSNI to introduce new sex work liaison officers to make the industry safer for sex workers.