Surprise, surprise... rape and sex assaults soar in Britain’s first official red light district
RAPES and sex assaults reported to police have increased alarmingly in an area designated as Britain’s first legalised red light district.
For more than three years prostitutes have been allowed to ply their trade within a ‘managed area’ of Holbeck in Leeds at night without fear of arrest.
But figures released by police show complaints of rape almost trebled in the first year and have remained significantly higher than before.
Sex assaults reported to police are currently more than double the number before the controversial zone was introduced.
Problems associated with the red light district are so bad that some local businesses are closing or moving away.
But the body running the scheme says the figures, released by West Yorkshire Police under the Freedom of Information Act, reflect increased confidence by sex workers to report crime.
The Holbeck scheme was introduced in October 2014 by Safer Leeds, a partnership between the police and the council.
Police no longer issue cautions or make arrests between 7pm and 7am for loitering, offences. soliciting Rapes reported or kerbcrawling to police in the Beeston and Holbeck Ward – covering a wider area than the red light zone – were 13 in 2012, 15 in 2013 and 22 in 2014.
With the zone in operation, the rape figure rose to 60 in 2015, 48 in 2016 and 45 until the end of October this year.
The number of complaints that led to charges rose from five to nine between 2014 and 2015 but have otherwise remained at prered light levels. Charges for sex assaults have also remained low, but sex assault reports increased from 11 in 2012, eight in 2013 and 19 in 2014 to 34 in 2015, 41 in 2016 and 44 up until October. Mary Honeyball, a Labour MEP on the women’s rights committee in the European Parliament, said the scheme did not work. ‘Authorities who consider adopting the programme may as well hand over the keys of the designated area to pimps and brothel owners to do as they wish, because this is in no way an effective programme to protect these women,’ she said.
‘Agencies and councils are naive in the extreme if they believe they will best protect prostitutes by giving them a designated “safe” area within which to operate.’
Local businesses are equally unimpressed. The drug problem is so bad that council officials have given some industrial units bins to dispose of spent needles that litter the area in the morning. Used condoms are found in gutters and some prostitutes are caught on CCTV having sex outside.
Ian Staines, managing director of the Fresco Group, a local business, said: ‘These figures do not surprise me. Female members of our staff feel threatened. The police aren’t interested.
‘I have given them CCTV footage and they went off with the data sticks and I have never seen them again. They showed prostitutes having sex in our car park. They are not supposed to commit an act of gross indecency in public…which is what they are doing.’ A man whose family have been running businesses in the area since 1937 said he and his wife are both shutting their firms.
The 58-year-old man, who asked not to be named because of previous threats, said: ‘My wife used to have 20 or so appointments a day and now it is down to one and two. People ring up and then when they hear the address they cancel.’
He added: ‘The girls need help but the police seem more concerned about their rights than ours. It would be better if these girls could use a building like in other countries and get off the streets.’
A spokesman for Safer Leeds said: ‘One of the main aims has been to improve the relationship and communication with sex workers to give them the confidence to report offences against them.’
He said statistics showed an increase in crime reporting that ‘has led to some landmark convictions of offenders who would otherwise have continued to commit offences’.
‘The police aren’t interested’