Prostitution law review after police hotel warning

Friday 06 February 2015

A review of 120-year-old prostitution laws aimed at raising the maximum fine for running a brothel from just £50 is taking place after the police issued another warning about Jersey’s hotels being used by organised gangs of pimps.

Home Affairs Minister Kristina Moore has committed to reviewing the laws and sentences to protect victims of sexual exploitation.

Her intervention comes as the police have warned that gangs are using Jersey’s hotels for prostitution – and after the case in December in which a man who brought two women, including his pregnant girlfriend, to hire them out for sex but who was only kicked out of the Island after it emerged the ancient law only provided for a three-month prison sentence or a £50 fine.

Deputy Moore – who was yesterday at a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Westminster about human rights and sexual exploitation – confirmed that she would ask for a review of the law.

Last year, Magistrate Bridget Shaw called for a review, saying the law should be brought to the attention of the Attorney General, after learning that a defendant who admitted a charge faced a maximum fine of just £50 – less than the £80 fee he charged clients for sex with the two women he brought to the Panama Hotel in Green Street to work as prostitutes.

Deputy Moore said that she had been talking to police and prosecutors about changing the law.

She said: “I am committed to and have begun working with the police and law officers to enhance our abilities to protect victims of sexual exploitation.

“I am pleased that the States of Jersey Police are working with the hospitality sector by conducting the awareness campaign. Empowering people to react to suspicious behaviour will be a powerful way to prevent exploitation and abuse.”

Yesterday’s police warning said that “potentially vulnerable teenagers and adults” were being used as prostitutes in Island hotels, and that police suggested that organised sexual exploitation might be taking place.

Detective Chief Inspector Chris Beechey said: “We believe that some of the women, and men, receiving payment for sexual services may be vulnerable and possibly being controlled by others, as well as facing obvious risks when alone with clients.”