Two-and-a-half years after a massive police crackdown - in which seven prolific
street walkers were given ASBOs - Britain's oldest trade is creeping back
towards the peak it reached in Reading five years ago.
West Reading Inspector Dave Griffiths has vowed to tackle the problem by
looking into what makes the Oxford Road area such an attractive stomping ground
for prostitutes.
Speaking exclusively to the Evening Post, Insp Griffiths said: "I'm getting
more and more complaints, particularly around the Western Elms Avenue area.
"But we won't be returning to the bad old days and it won't be allowed to peak
like it did before.
"We're better educated, we understand the problem and we have a better idea of
what needs to be done."
The July 2004 ASBOs were considered a pioneering step towards cleaning up
Oxford Road's prostitution and drugs problems.
Seven women were banned from selling their bodies for sex anywhere in the
country.
The move encouraged communities to come forward to report sex workers plying
their trade in their streets and the West Reading road was considered the
safest it had been in years.
Insp Griffiths said: "Four or five years ago it was at its peak.
"We knew of 70 different girls who worked in the locality for the purposes of
selling sex, all of whom had a crack and heroin problem.
"When we gave out those ASBOs it was a voyage of discovery and from our
perspective it greatly improved the situation. We got them into Drug
Intervention Programmes (DIP) and it was really successful and that's why we
were able to see the reductions and raise the profile."
But the ASBOs expired in July last year and with more young women still
becoming addicted to crack cocaine and heroin the trade is once again rearing
its ugly head.
Insp Griffiths said the long-term solution lay in rehabilitation rather than
persistently arresting the prostitutes.
"Would they be doing this - having sex with total strangers - if they were not
drug addicts?" he said.
"There don't appear to be any other issues driving the trade.
"You only have to look at what's been going on in Suffolk to realise how
desperate these people are.
"The compulsion through drugs is so overwhelming that they are prepared to put
themselves in the hands of a possible serial killer just to get the money to
score.
"We are completely aware of what's going on and there is a lot of effort going
into gaining intelligence.
"We've tried zero tolerance and enforcement but we needed to look at the issues
behind what they do.
"We could nick a girl and she could end up inside but that won't solve the
problem. We need to take a detailed look at the area and see if there is
anything we can change.
"ASBOs are an option again and we'll look at individual girls and the punters
as well. Quite often the punters are ordinary people who are already in a
relationship and are engaging in it for kicks. But they are as much a problem
as the girls themselves - they are just as unwelcome."
Insp Griffiths said he had heard about Polish girls working the streets of West
Reading but dismissed the suggestion that there was a big problem with
immigrant prostitutes.
He added: "There is a lot of speculation on that and it's something we're
keeping an eye on.
"There is no evidence there is a big Eastern European problem on the Oxford
Road. There is a strong link between Eastern Europe and human trafficking and
people assume because we have an Eastern European population here that this is
happening here."
