Sex-for-a-fiver girls driven off streets in police blitz
 | | Sgt Fyfe with a lady of the night |
PROSTITUTES selling their bodies for as little as £5 are being cleared off the streets in a three-night blitz on the sex trade.
Police were out in force on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to target known sex workers in and around Ilford Lane and deter kerb crawlers from the area.
One girl stopped by police told the Recorder the prostitutes are driven by one thing - drugs.
The 24-year-old said: "It's not about the money, I have no respect for, or value of, money.
"Everything is just about the next hit or getting the next pipe.
"I know people think it is disgusting and my mum wouldn't want this to happen in her road, but some girls simply don't care."
She said the girls - many, she claims, are Russian - are controlled by pimps who force them on to the street and take half their earnings.
Sgt Douglas Fyfe, of Loxford Safer Neighbourhood Team, who led the police and Redbridge Council operation, said there are between 15 and 20 regular girls working in the area, with ages ranging from early 20s to mid-50s.
Each night from 9pm until the early hours of the following morning, both undercover and uniformed police, guided by CCTV operators, stopped suspected prostitutes - handing out cautions and ordering others home.
The law states prostitutes need three strikes in 12 months to be arrested and fined - but new rules in April could see this timespan reduce to three months.
But Sgt Fyfe feels some girls are undeterred. He said: "Unfortunately, some see a fine as a tax and they will just go out and work twice as hard to pay it off.
"But we want the message to get out that we are targeting this area and no one is going to get an easy ride."
The operation came to a close early this morning - but Chief Insp Stan Greatrick warned more work will soon follow.
Loxford's Cllr Filly Maravala joined the operation and said: "We do not take this problem lightly and will fight to eradicate prostitution from Redbridge."
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