The Brothel District
Holiday cottages in the Peaks rented by criminal gangs and filled with prostitutes, warns bishop
HOLIDAY cottages in one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations are being used as pop-up brothels, a bishop has claimed.
Bishop of Derby the Rt Rev Dr Alastair Redfern said homes in the Peak District are being rented by gangs who have trafficked vulnerable young girls to the area to work as prostitutes.
Dr Redfern said holiday lets in the picturesque national park were cheap compared to the money the gangs could make, while the rural location meant they could operate for a month then move on before anyone noticed.
The Peak District is mainly in Derbyshire but also reaches into Cheshire, Staffordshire, Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. Its beautiful scenery attracts more than ten million visitors a year and holiday cottages cost between £300 and £700 a week to rent depending on the season.
Dr Redfern said the gangs advertised the women for sex on the internet, and the problem was getting worse. The bishop, who regularly meets victims as part of his work campaigning against human trafficking, said women were lured to the region on the promise of non-existent restaurant or bar work then forced into a life of prostitution.
‘Derby is a place where eastern European women come in search of a better life but they have been forced into working in a brothel and have their life taken from them,’ he said. ‘In the Peak District there are lots of holiday homes used as pop-up brothels. The organised criminals bring the vulnerable women in then use a cottage for business. They stay for four weeks and make a lot of money.
‘All they are paying is the rent. But they are in secluded areas and, before anyone realises what is going on, they are off to a new place and they take the women with them. What a clever business model. It’s a very cheap place to rent, especially in comparison to what they would be making.’
Police have warned of gangs using other tourist hotspots to run pop-up brothels in holiday lets, including Newquay in Cornwall and Cumbria’s Lake District.
Earlier this year police said up to 30 pop-up brothels were being opened each week in Swindon.
A study last year by the Police Foundation think-tank found that women in pop-up brothels were more likely to have been trafficked than those in standard brothels.
MPs investigating the sex trade are looking at the problem. Dr Redfern, who has been working in the Lords to toughen the law, said: ‘This is a serious criminal business. They are forced to work in brothels because the work they were promised does not exist.’
He said men were also being exploited by traffickers. He had come across up to 20 men living in a two-bedroom house in Derby with one toilet, being transported to work after their passports had been taken from them. ‘Their very humanity has been knocked out,’ he said. ‘They are broken and their ability to think of themselves as human beings is very weak.
‘They have been signed up to various benefits but they are not getting a penny. The controllers and the owners are getting it all, while the victims are working all day for hardly any money.’ He told the Derby Telegraph there was a greater awareness of modern day slavery but more had to be done.
‘Businesses have got to be aware and know the signs,’ he said.
‘But we are all consumers of this – whether that’s going to a cheaper car wash that could be employing victims, or a nail bar, or getting someone in for cheap labour.
‘The big change will come when everyone realises this.’