OUR SHOCK AT BROTHEL NEXT DOOR
AGRANDMOTHER has described what it’s like to live on a seemingly quiet suburban street when your neighbours run a brothel. Maureen Mahoney had lived on sleepy Regent Street in Dowlais for 52 years when a number of women moved into a property in the street.
Last week 36-year-old Leon Hall, of Heathland Way, Neath, was handed a 10-month suspended sentence and ordered to undertake 180 hours of unpaid work after admitting keeping a brothel.
The case made headlines this week after it emerged that local councillor Brent Carter was discovered inside the brothel “covered in lipstick” when police carried out a search of the property.
Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard on Friday that a warrant was executed by police on May 8, 2015, at a property in a residential area of the town. But 74-year-old Maureen initially knew nothing about the activities taking place next door.
“I was taking parcels in for the girls before I realised; my husband was ill at the time,” she said. “One night there was a car outside and it was idling. I could see him there with a phone and I thought ‘ This isn’t right.’ I put my hallway light on and he went.”
Soon she noticed “different girls were coming and going”.
She would see Hall taking women into the building.
Some punters would access the brothel through her back garden.
“My son said to the police, you’ve got to do something about this because my mother is here on her own,” Maureen said.
She remembered when the police raided in May 2015. Her husband Bernard had died in March.
“There were police everywhere, a Black Maria, and they stripped the place,” the mum-of-two and grandmother-of-three said. “The police asked me if I knew the girls and could I describe them.”
Before the bust, men were knocking her door by mistake.
“My bell was going and I didn’t know who they were,” Maureen said. “When I got there, there would be no-one there. They were obviously ringing the wrong door.”
It was “unbelievable” they picked a residence on a quiet terraced street.
“How did he come to pick this house here where every neighbour knows each other? Did he think no one would notice? If you see a strange car pull up you think ‘Who is that now?’ You can imagine when all these cars were pulling up we were thinking, ‘Where are they going?’
When it first opened Maureen thought it was “just two nice young girls”.
“I’ve not got a clue why they picked here,” the retired nurse said. “I think they were crazy. In the right place at the right time you do what you want. But you don’t put it in a residential area in the middle of a street.”
Maureen started talking to her neighbour.
“He called me over the garden and said, ‘They’re terrible!’” she said. He was laughing mind.”
And she was thankful her home had thick walls.
“You couldn’t hear anything, it was quiet as anything,” she said. “I heard nothing, which was a blessing.”
The new owners of the house were also shocked when they discovered what had been going on.
“They said he gave them references,” Maureen said.
Meanwhile, residents on the street said they had little sympathy for the councillor caught up in the raid.
“It’s disgusting,” said one, who did not want to be named.
“Are we paying his wages so he can go to a brothel? He should be struck off.”
Another resident said: “I’ve got grandchildren myself and you don’t want to see that.”