UK Legal News

Traffickers have been jailed after bringing two women into the UK in June after persuading them to take part in sham marriages in the Republic of Ireland.

The victims were then forced into prostitution and were driven to brothels throughout England.

The women's plight was discovered on June 24 whilst they were in Maidstone, after one victim persuaded a hotel manager to call police.

Ivan Gujda admitted two charges of human trafficking for sexual exploitation within the UK and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Martin Brusch and Dusan Horvat pleaded guilty to the same charges and also to two of trafficking women into the UK for sexual exploitation. Both were sentenced to ten years in prison.

Two pub landlords have been fined for breaching licence restrictions by allowing lap dancers to perform in their pub, following an investigation by Hillingdon Council.

Mukhtiar Singh Sandhu, the designated premises supervisor, and Richard Whallen, manager at the De Burgh Arms, in Station Approach, Hayes, pleaded guilty to allowing a licensable activity to be carried on without authorisation at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court.

They were each fined £1,500 and ordered to pay £352 court costs.

Whallen's licence was also suspended for two months, although the pub will still be able to trade without lapdancing performances under Sandhu's personal licence.

Punch Taverns, the pub's licence holder, had applied to the council to amend the terms of licence to permit lapdancing in the De Burgh Arms but this was refused in January. A temporary events notice was granted to allow a dozen performances to take place over the course of 12 months but the pub landlords allowed the lapdancing to continue once the quota had been reached.

Councillor Jonathan Bianco said: The council will not stand by and allow premises to so blatantly disregard the restrictions in place. We are currently encouraging residents to have their say on how the council should deal with new applications for sex entertainment premises. This is an opportunity for people to share their views and help shape the way the council works, so I would encourage our residents to take part in the consultation.

The consultation closes on 7th January 2011. View the consultation document at www.hillingdon.gov.uk .

Indecent images found on Kevin Redgrave's computer were the worst a police forensic officer had seen in five years, prosecutor Iain White told Truro Crown Court.

The officer claimed: I have never encountered more depraved, abusive and cruel pictures and movie files.

Redgrave was jailed for ten months by Deputy Circuit Judge Lester Boothman, who also imposed an indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

A 20 year old who had films of indecent sex acts on his laptop was just a normal, happy-go-lucky young man who downloaded them out of curiosity, a court was told.

Nicholas Price admitted possessing eight movie clips which were deemed extreme pornography at Flintshire Magistrates Court. But his solicitor Huw Roberts said it had simply been curiosity rather than any deep-seated problem. They were not sexually motivated at all, he explained.

Price had earlier been with a group of friends in a pub and they had similar footage on their mobile phones for a laugh . That may seem odd but it is quite a common phenomena, he said.

Prosecutor Matthew Ellis told how on February 17 this year police executed a search warrant at Price's then home address and three laptops were seized. On one of them were the images shown in the charges.

Price was placed on a 12-month community order under which he must carry out 155 hours of unpaid work and was additionally punished with the court seizure and destruction of the computer containing the movie clips.

Two Surrey women received suspended jail terms after admitting running several brothels in Sussex.

At Lewes Crown Court Ping Hylott was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. Lihua Na was given a nine-month jail term, also suspended for two years.

Sussex Police said the pair had benefited from financially from several brothels in Sussex.

The force said the two women were arrested in September after police raided brothels in Lewes and Horsham that had been under surveillance.

Hylott pleaded guilty to three charges of brothel keeping and one count of money laundering (ie just spending the money earned). Na admitted two counts of brothel keeping and one charge of money laundering on 5 October part way through their trial.

Update: Acquitted

20th March 2011. See  article from  redhillandreigatelife.co.uk

Ping Hylott and Lihua Na appeared before Lewes Crown Court last October after an investigation by Sussex Police's Money Laundering Team identified them as managing brothels in Horsham, Haywards Heath and Lewes.

Hylott was given a 12-month sentence and Na received a nine month sentence, both of which were suspended for two years.

A confiscation hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 heard that Hylott had profited from the brothels to the value of £ 98,977.99.

She was issued with a confiscation order for £ 12,840.13, with 28 days to pay, together with a default sentence of six months on failure to pay the order.

At a similar hearing on February 25, Na was issued with an order for £ 3,000 - with three months to pay, together with a default sentence of two months on failure to do so - after the court heard she had benefited from her criminal activity by nearly £ 28,000.

Margaret McCracken was caught selling mephedrone in a trading standards sting at Body Style adult theme shop which she runs with her partner Frank Nicholson in Ayr.

Until recently the drug mephedrone was sold as a legal high.

McCracken admitted that on November 13 last year she sold Moonshine bath salts containing mephedrone with a wicked disregard for the consequences . She also admitted she encouraged urging epople to take the drug, also known as M-cat, knowing it might cause injury, mental health problems and death .

Nicholson admitted offering Moonshine for sale.

Sheriff Alan Miller fined McCracken £700 and Nicholson £550.

A woman who allowed her home to be used as a brothel has been given a conditional discharge.

Although the terraced house in Shildon, County Durham, was in the name of Carol Smith, it was accepted she made little profit from the venture.

She was arrested after a police inquiry into activities at the house in July, following a complaint understood to have been made by neighbours.

Smith who agreed she allowed a friend to use the house for prostitution, was facing a potential prison sentence of up to six months after admitting a charge of keeping a brothel when she appeared at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court last month.

The magistrates committed the case to be sentenced at Durham Crown Court. But, when the case was called yesterday, Judge Christopher Prince immediately made it clear he would not impose a prison sentence: She has allowed a friend to use her premises for the purposes of prostitution and pleaded 'guilty' at the first opportunity. Although she has some previous convictions there is nothing for some time or of this nature. I will impose a conditional discharge for 12 months and you must keep out of trouble for a year and you will hear no more about this.

Smith has been subject to a proceeds of crime financial inquiry since her guilty plea at the magistrates' court. But Rachel Masters, prosecuting, told yesterday's hearing: Having consulted the financial investigator in this case it would appear she has no assets and I don't think it's in the public interest to pursue a confiscation order.

A sex shop owner has been fined £3,000 for trading without the proper licence. He was ordered to pay the full council costs of £3,878 and the mandatory £15 victim surcharge.

Wayne MacGowan ran a shop called 18+ on Bournemouth's Holdenhurst Road. He pleaded guilty to three counts of trading without a licence at Bournemouth Magistrates Court.

Police and council officers searched the shop in November 2009 and found 727 hardcore pornographic DVDs. The DVDs were a mix of R18-rated films, which can only be sold in sex shops, and unclassified films.

They also found sex toys and a substantial number of magazines – the total retail value was £21,789.

MacGowan closed the shop at the weekend and it would not open again.

His defence said he did not know at the time he needed a licence and there were other unlicensed shops in the area.

Tom Horder, defending, said: It seems that a picture was created that there was a degree of toleration. He also said that what made a sex shop was unclear, adding: When you look at Ann Summers, the line becomes less clear. As far as the defence knows none of them are licensed. They sell sex toys, lingerie and pornographic films.

Maria O'Sullivan has been fined over £35,000 for running an illegal sex shop in Kings Cross. She was prosecuted by Islington council for owning and operating the unlicensed business on York Way.

Pirate Bookshop is owned by Ballaction London Ltd, where O'Sullivan is the sole director. She was ordered by Highbury Magistrates to pay fines and costs totalling £35,360.

Caledonian Ward Councillor Paul Convery said: I am very pleased that the Council's case has been successful. For nearly 5 years, we have repeatedly called for legal action against unlicensed sex shops in Kings Cross. The first step in ridding the area of it's vice reputation is to get rid of every vice-related business, particularly the ones that refuse to be licensed by the local authority. Our policy is simple – zero tolerance against all types of sleazy and illegal sex related activities.

The company was fined £17,500 plus £2,830 costs and £15 victim support surcharge and Maria O'Sullivan was personally fined £15,000 plus £15 victim support surcharge.

Maria O'Sullivan's son is the world class snooker player, Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Two madames, a maid, and a book keeper have been sentenced for their part in running a brothel in Hatfield, which made £170,000 in six months.

The enterprise in Salisbury Square was shut down by police following an raid in November last year.

Katrina Baker and Valentina Janutiene were said to have set up the brothel, St Albans Crown Court. They were assisted by Janutiene's fiance, Anthony Andrew, who helped the pair with his accounting and book keeping skills. The fourth person in the dock was the maid Sharon Kerrigan, described by Judge John Plumstead as anold prostitute .

Baker, Janutiene and Kerrigan all appeared for sentencing having admitted a charge of keeping a brothel for prostitution. Andrew appeared for sentence having been found guilty by a jury of the same charge.

Neil King, prosecuting, described the set up police found as a well run, professional and tidy brothel . At the house at the time were two professional ladies wearing silk dressing gowns and Kerrigan who was working as a brothel maid.

A police investigation discovered Baker had placed advertisements in local papers advertising a massage parlour. More paperwork was discovered that showed prostitutes could keep 50 per cent of their takings with the other half going to those running the brothel.

Passing sentence Judge Plumstead said had there been any sign that women working at the brothel had been trafficked then the sentences would have been harsher. The judge said that while women could choose to prostitute themselves what they could not do was to set up brothels:It commercialises and exploits those who are willing to prostitute themselves for the benefit of others,

Baker and Janutiene were both given a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work. The pair were also made the subject of a Prohibitive Activity Requirement forbidding them to engage in prostitution for the next six months.

Andrew was sentenced to four months in jail suspended for two years and told he must pay £2,800 towards the cost of the trial and a further £500 towards his defence costs.

Kerrigan was given a two-year conditional discharge.

A sex shop owner has admitted selling bath salts containing the recently banned drug mephedrone.

Margaret McCracken, who part owns the Body Style adult theme shop in the Ayr's Burns Statue Square, faced a total of five mephedrone-related charges at Ayr Sheriff Court.

The Crown accepted her not guilty pleas to four of the charges. But she admitted that on November 13 last year with a wicked disregard for the consequences she sold Moonshine bath salts containing mephedrone, encouraging ingestion and exposing the public tothe possibility of injury, mental health problems and death .

The other owner, Fran Nicholson, still faces all five charges and the case against him was continued until September 30. The charges include selling Moonshine bath salts or plant food, containing mephedrone, to an undercover female trading standards officer on November 13 and encouraging her to ingest it.

Sentence has been deferred on McCracken until September 30.

Ayr MP Sandra Osborne said: It is pleasing that the police here are treating this with the seriousness it deserves.

The former Labour Government made mephedrone illegal in April this year.

effery Gray has been given a suspended jail sentence after police found a CS spray, a stun gun and animal pornography at his home.

The court heard how officers found the items when they raided the man's flat.

Jim Hope, prosecuting, said: The stun gun is described as being of the appearance of a torch with two metal prongs, and two buttons, one for the light and the other to operate a gun. Also recovered from the bedroom was a DVD disc.

When police viewed the footage they found an extreme 22-minute pornographic film.

Judge Beatrice Bolton said she had been appalled by the film: I have seen it and it's pretty disgusting . It's pretty extreme and particularly unpleasant and I don't know who it is that gets any sexual satisfaction out of this.

Gray was given a 12-week prison sentence, suspended for two years for the weapons charges and seven days for the porn, to run concurrently.

In sentencing, Judge Bolton added: What led you to keep hold of this property, I don't know. You now have a record after a great deal of Army service and an unblemished character.

In matters of extreme porn, the message of recent cases seems to be that whether you get off increasingly depends on how familiar your legal team are with a law still in its courtroom infancy.

...Read the full article

A Dorset man has been sentenced after pleading guilty to 11 counts of possessing extreme pornography depicting pain being inflicted.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard how David Hill had been arrested after police searched his mother's home and another property in Christchurch.

Prosecutor Desmond Duffy said two computers had been seized and examined by experts who found three movies and 26 still images featuring scenes of violence: When interviewed in January this year Mr Hill admitted downloading the material because he was participating in bondage acts,  He accepted that what he had downloaded was extreme in nature, acknowledging participants were likely to be experiencing severe pain and risking injury as a result.

Duffy added that Hill had wanted to assess if he felt able to participate in that kind of activity himself .

Defending, Robert Gray said his client was a professional man of previous good character who had received treatment for his interest in this kind of material .

The court heard how Hill had been suspended from his job, on full pay, pending the outcome of legal proceedings.

Imposing a two-year community order and three-month curfew, Judge Samuel Wiggs told Hill: It is extremely sad that you should be in this court. You have substantial qualifications in the career which you follow. Hill was ordered to pay £1,350 prosecution costs.

And a reminder of the law

Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008

Section 63 Possession of extreme pornographic images

...

(7) An image falls within this subsection if it portrays, in an explicit and realistic way, any of the following—

(a) an act which threatens a person’s life,
(b) an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,

...

A man and woman who enslaved sex workers via debt bondage have both been jailed.

Michael Dalton and Nikki Chen brought in women from Asia to work in the four brothels that they operated over a six-year period, including one in Egham. They owned properties in Gloucestershire and Surrey, as well as luxury Mercedes and Lamborghini sports cars, all bought with the proceeds of their crimes.

On August 5 at Croydon Crown Court, Dalton was sentenced to three years for control of prostitution for gain, and Chen to two-and-a-half years for the same offence.

Dalton also received concurrent 21 and 18-month terms for, respectively, conspiracy to traffick within the UK for sexual exploitation and money laundering offences [ie spending their ill-gotten gains] under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Chen's concurrent sentences were 18 months and two years.

Chen has already surrendered £250,000 while the amount Dalton is to repay will be determined at a future hearing.

Officers working on the Metropolitan Police's Operation Icefall observed at least a dozen customers visiting each of the brothels every day between October 2008 and July 2009. The minimum payment for services from prostitutes working in the premises was £60, ranging up to £120 per hour.

Another man, Manjit Singh was given a 12-month jail term, suspended for two years, on July 8. He admitted conspiracy to traffick within the UK for sexual exploitation and was also handed a community order to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work. Singh was involved in the transportation of prostitutes to and from the premises.

Ian Garrett received an 18-month prison sentence in July after admitting the same charge as Singh. Garrett was seen carrying luggage for women who had been trafficked from South East Asia as they were taken to the brothels.

Case officer Detective Constable Christopher Ansell said: The investigation revealed that some of the women were in debt bondage ranging from £25,000 upwards.

A woman who performed reception duties for a prostitute working out of a Dunfermline flat has been fined £500.

Elana Angulo, who claimed her work as a dominatrix was a a trade of humiliation that did not provide sexual services, was found guilty of knowingly permitting a flat to be used as a brothel or for the purposes of habitual prostitution.

Angulo was also convicted of, for the purpose of gain, exercising control, direction or influence over the movements of a prostitute, namely Louise Thomas, and directing her in such a manner to aid and abet or compel her prostitution, in that she did knowingly permit her to carry out sexual favours for money and then profit from the payments made for the same.

Sheriff Ian Dunbar had previously heard Thomas admit to working as a prostitute at the flat where she would provide sexual favours to men for between £10 and £50. Thomas admitted she would pay Angulo a small amount of money for the rental of the room and that she would use whatever money she earned from providing sex and a massage to clients to pay her bills.

Thomas said, Ms Angulo would be there too and she would answer the phone. She would give my description, tell whoever called where the flat was and when they planned to come to the flat. She would then let me know when people were coming.

In passing sentence, Sheriff Dunbar said, I am quite satisfied that the premises were habitually used for prostitution, you were aware what Ms Thomas was doing and profited financially. I do accept that you were not involved in compelling anyone to become involved in this, but the fact is you provided accommodation for these acts, placed adverts and provided reception duties at the flat.

A stunning reversal for police and prosecution in North Wales. A case, scheduled to be heard in Mold Crown Court, was the culmination of a year-long nightmare for Andrew Hollan as the CPS declined to offer any evidence, and he left court a free man.

The saga began last summer when, following a tip-off, police raided Holland's home looking for indecent images of children. They found none, but they did find two clips, one involving a woman purportedly having sex with a tiger, and one which is believed to have depicted sado-masochistic activity between adults.

Despite Holland's protests that he had no interest in the material, and that it had been sent to him unsolicited as a joke , he was charged with possessing extreme porn. In a first court appearance in January of this year, the tiger porn charge was dropped when prosecuting counsel discovered the volume control and at the end of the action heard the tiger turn to camera and say: That beats doing adverts for a living.

The clip was therefore deemed to be unrealistic and out of scope as far as extreme porn legislation was concerned.

The court then turned its attention to the allegedly more serious clip involving adult interaction which, it has been suggested, featured some seriously unpleasant application of sharp objects to genitals.

Holland spoke to members of Consenting Adult Action Network and sexual rights organisation Backlash, and he ended up pleading not guilty. He was expected to call several expert witnesses who would have challenged the characterisation of the clip as pornographic , arguing instead that the content was intended to be a form of extremely bad taste joke and not sexual in nature.

The CPS, however, declined to offer any evidence, and the matter is at an end.

We spoke to Holland after the case and he declared himself very relieved. Due to the sexual nature of the case, he has been barred from contact with his daughter since the case began and he is now determined to re-establish contact. He told us: Now I can start to put my life back together.

The CPS has not yet commented on this matter, or on the fact that on each charge, it was not until the day of the court appearance that it decided the evidence to hand was inadequate.

...Read the full article

And a reminder of the law

Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008

Section 63 Possession of extreme pornographic images

It is an offence for a person to be in possession of an extreme pornographic image which is both—

(a) pornographic, and
(b) an extreme image. 

An image is “pornographic” if it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.

...

Proceedings for an offence under this section may not be instituted—

(a) in England and Wales, except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions

Short jokey bad taste porn clips are clearly produced for the purpose of amusement or even disgust but they are simply not produced for sexual arousal.

DPP Keir Starmer should be ashamed of his persecution of an innocent man.

A man caught with a jokey bad taste video on his mobile was warned by a judge he could have faced jail. Police found the short video clip on Michael Nelson's mobile after he was arrested and taken to Gill Bridge police station in Sunderland.

The footage showed a man's genitals being mutilated and had been on his phone for several months, a court heard.

Perhaps this was just the well circulated video showing a woman's stiletto heel being ground into a guys dick. This clip is probably languishing forgotten in the inbox of thousands of people.

Persecutor Jeanette Smith told Sunderland Magistrates' Court that the 23-year-old blamed peer pressure, telling police the images were going about the streets , but he did not know who had sent them to him. He said at first he could not delete it, but accepted later he could have deleted it, but pressure from friends made him keep it on his phone, she added.

Nelson admitted to an offence of possessing extreme pornography at a court hearing in June.

Defence solicitor Geoff Pearson said Nelson, who has no previous convictions, did not forward the clip on to anyone and had no other hardcore pornography on his phone. Pearson said: This is an image that was sent to him on his phone by an individual. He did not invite it and he has not done anything with it in the sense he did not distribute it. It just sat on his phone for a long time.

He added: The images are pretty awful, I have to accept that and he accepts that. I can't imagine why you would want to watch this, unless you were the particular type of person that found some gratification in it.

He is, or he was, a young man of impeccable character and this is not the kind of matter he was seeking or gets any gratification from. If only he had pressed the delete button, but it may have been peer pressure that caused him not to do so and got him into this trouble.

District Judge Roger Elsey ordered Nelson to complete 200 hours of unpaid work.

He said: There is no doubt that this was a revolting and perverted piece of video and there is no reasonable explanation for this being on your mobile for the time it was. If you had any previous convictions or you had distributed this piece of video, you would be going to prison.

Nelson was also ordered to pay £85 towards court costs.

A woman who worked as the receptionist at a Midland brothel has escaped jail.

Lisa Barton was arrested when police raided a brothel in Vicar Street, Dudley, where they also found a dungeon, sex toys, contraception, and lists of prices for sexual services.

The woman admitted assisting in the management of a brothel at Wolverhampton Crown Court. When interviewed, Barton told the officers she worked as a receptionist at the brothel for just two days a week – picking up £60 a day.

She was given a 20 week jail term suspended for a year. She was further ordered to carry out 100 hours' unpaid work in the community by Judge Michael Dudley.

Cuddles first hit the news in 2006 after a mass police raid with claims of trafficking and 'rescued' girls.

The Scotsman reported:

Nineteen women believed to have been locked up and forced to become sex slaves have been freed by police after a raid on a massage parlour.

Fifty officers from West Midlands Police, including 25 women, stormed the premises on Thursday evening and arrested two men and a woman who are believed to be the managers. A sawn-off shotgun and three extendable batons were found on the premises, which has an electric fence at the rear.

The girls, who come from Greece, Latvia, Turkey, Poland, Italy, Japan and Hong Kong, were also questioned by police with the help of interpreters.

Police were looking into allegations that they were brought to this country after being promised jobs as nannies and waitresses, and said that immigration officers had been informed.

Detective Inspector Mark Nevitt of West Midlands Police led the operation at the massage parlour. He said: Cuddles massage parlour was targeted as part of intelligence gathered through Operation Strikeout, which targets robberies and violent crime. We went to the property to execute a warrant in human trafficking, and intelligence suggests the girls were brought into the country under false pretences, sold on and held against their will. These girls could be subject to violence, sexual assaults and forced to work as prostitutes. There were 19 women in there in total and they were obviously very distressed so the female officers also helped to calm them down,"

Of course by the time it came to court in 2008 it transpired that the women weren't coerced or trafficked at all, but were working voluntarily for a well-managed brothel.

Manager Susan Richards was jailed for 6 months and owner Carl Pritchett was jailed for two years. Both were also ordered to repay the proceeds of their 'crimes'.

Police Payback Team

Based on article from sundaymercury.net

Carl Pritchett who ran a brothel at Cuddles Massage Parlour in Birmingham has now been jailed for a further seven years for failing to pay back £2m he made from the venture.

Syed Askari, of the Crown Persecution Service, said: The CPS and our partners in the criminal justice system are committed to taking cash out of crime. In enforcing confiscation orders we will robustly pursue defaulters and seek activation of the default sentence by the court where there is wilful non-compliance.

John Barker, from West Midlands Police Central Payback Team, said: Carl Pritchett was made subject of a £2million confiscation order in September 2009. That order was based upon money Pritchett had made, and conceded he had made from prostitution. He was given time to pay, but failed to do so.

That failure resulted in him being jailed for seven years. Despite the term of imprisonment, enforcement of the order will continue until it has been paid in full. Orders made under the Proceeds of Crime Act do not go away and cannot be ignored.

Comment: Legalised Theft

19th July 2010. Thanks to Alan

I think Susan Richards actually got a suspended sentence, and was later threatened with a further fifteen months if she didn't cough up her proceeds of crime . It was clear that she could only do so by selling her house. How the absurd rug-headed twats who issue these orders sleep at night I really don't know. Meanwhile, just down the road in Dudley, a prostitutes' maid earning not much above the minimum wage has got a suspended sentence for involvement in managing a brothel .

The Cuddles case is interesting. At first glance, it looks as if the Sherlocks of the West Midlands vice squad took two and a half years to work out that a massage parlour called Cuddles was a knocking shop. I'd be surprised if it took me two and a half seconds! I have nasty sneaking suspicion that this is yet another case of the pound signs lighting up in Mr Plod's eyes at the prospect of getting a share of the proceeds of crime . Since Plod got to keep some of the dosh, the number of raids on brothels has increased. There has been at least one case down south of a brothel, quietly and sensibly tolerated for years by the local police, who even gave advice on security cameras, being raided after this absurd and iniquitous legislation came in. Sold to cretinous MPs as taking ill-gotten gains off fraudsters and robbers, it has been disproportionately used against tarts and their maids, with the odd pimp thrown in.

A man has been jailed after being caught with a photo of a man having sex with a squid.

A court heard the sea creature was clearly dead in the picture, and a man is seen having sexual intercourse with it. (beware, candidate pictures  can be easily found on Google Images)

Prosecutors amended the charge when it was admitted it could have been an octopus.

Andrew Dymond was charged with possessing an image of someone performing an act of intercourse with a dead animal, namely an octopus/squid, which was grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character .

He pleaded guilty to a total of 25 porn charges, including possessing child porn and photographic images featuring other animals.

Dymond was jailed for a total of four months. He was also banned from having any contact with children under the age of 16 and put on the sex offenders register for seven years.

Interfact, associated with the UK Private Shop chain, asked the High Court for leave to make a late appeal for a conviction under the VRA.

The case was Interfact Ltd v Liverpool City Council where R18s were sold by mail order from licensed premises.

The High Court held that where defendants had been convicted of criminal offences under national legislation which was unenforceable owing to a failure by the UK to comply with a pre-enactment procedural requirement imposed by EU law, it was not incumbent upon the Court of Appeal to re-open their cases out of time unless their convictions had given rise to any substantial injustice.

The applicants sought to quash their convictions, arguing that the court was required to exercise its discretion to reopen the decision of the Divisional Court and to grant leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal out of time because the earlier decisions were contrary to EU law. They argued that failure to grant the relief sought would infringe the principle of effectiveness in EU law. They contended that because of the government's failure to notify the regulations under which they were convicted to the Commission, their convictions and punishment infringed the prohibition on retrospective punishment under Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Court dismissed the applications.

...Read the full article

A Streatham man who downloaded porn involving horses and dogs has been spared an immediate jail sentence.

He was caught with the images of the animals having sex with women when police raided his home in February last year.

At Inner London Crown Court on Monday, June 14, he was sentenced to four months in jail, suspended for 12 months. The Iranian was also ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid work.

A man's got to know his technical limitations

Former stand-up comic Michael Silk was charged with six offences of possessing extreme porn featuring dodgy goings-on between humans and animals. Silk denied the charges which, it was alleged, had been committed in May 2009.

For the prosecution, Kent Online reports, Alex Wilson told the judge at Maidstone Crown Court last Tuesday that, following discussions with an expert, he would offer no further evidence as he believed there was no realistic prospect of conviction.

The judge entered formal not guilty verdicts.

A CPS spokesperson told us: It was also apparent from the evidence that the defendant was not computer literate. At the time the defendant's computer was seized the material was held in the computer's internet cache. There was no evidence that the defendant had saved the images or sought to keep them. In order to 'possess' the images in that state the law requires knowledge that the images exist and the means or know-how to retrieve them.

The defendant was in possession of the images at the point in time that he accessed them and viewed them. On the evidence available in this case it was not possible to prove that he did so at some time after the Act came into force. We could not therefore proceed with the prosecution and we accordingly offered no evidence.

Simply deleting an image will not save you if you are computer literate enough to retrieve it. Contrariwise, it appears that if you are a total computer illiterate, that might be enough to get you out of a fix.

...Read the full article

Comment: Punishing the Not Guilty

From Harvey

Yet again we find a person charged and hauled into court only to find the prosecution offer no evidence. NO EVIDENCE.

I wish judges would be more condemning of prosecutors for bringing charges before looking to check that the evidence stacks up as it seems to be happening more frequently. And the CPS fuckwits who do decide to prosecute should be named so we can see who they are and whether they are just dumb or are serial offenders. No surprise that this was, yet again, Kent police and prosecutors, who have form when it comes to "enhancing" the evidence, prosecuting first and asking questions later.

A Romanian pimp who lured a young girl to the UK before raping her and forcing her to work as a prostitute has been jailed for ten years in prison.

Cezar Murariu befriended the 18-year-old, dubbed Natalya, in northern Romania last summer and promised her a job in London, buying her a ticket to the UK.

However, when she arrived he took her to a flat in Cricklewood where he raped the girl, who was a virgin, and then took her to another flat and forced her to work as a prostitute. She was told by Murariu he would tell her family she was uncontrollable and voluntarily working as a prostitute unless she complied.

However, she managed to send a text message to her family telling them she was in trouble and they contacted London police who arrested Murariu.

Yesterday Murariu was founbd guilty of rape and two counts of controlling prostitution for gain at Southwark Court, and sentenced to ten years in prison.

A British man who brought two Thai prostitutes to Somerset to work in the sex trade has been jailed for two years.

Andrew Wallace brought the women, neither of whom could speak English, into the UK, helped them apply for visas, then advertised their services on his website.

Taunton Crown Court heard how Wallace set up liaisons for the women and split the proceeds with the pair, who were given accommodation in Weston.

Laurence Wilcox, defending, told the court neither women was coerced into the UK, and both were established prostitutes who came on their own volition . He also said that, when interviewed, both women said that Wallace had treated them well.

Judge Graham Hume Jones told Wallace: You and everyone else must understand that trafficking is regarded very seriously and is a serious offence under the Criminal Justice Act. He added: The aggravating feature of this case is that there were two women, but a number of mitigating features were that they were in their mid 20s, wanted to come to this country and were already working as prostitutes.

Three Rumanians have been jailed for trafficking a teenage girl to Britain and forcing her to work as a prostitute on the streets in East London.

Vasile Oaches, and Vasile Maris were convicted of trafficking for sexual exploitation and controlling prostitution, while Gheorghe Mihali was found guilty of controlling prostitution.

The gang befriended the 19-year-old in Romania and promised to find her a job in London. The girl arrived in September by car with the men and two other girls, only to be forced to work as a prostitute. They threatened her with violence and intimidation and forced her to hand over all the money she made.

Vasile was jailed for a total of two-and-a-half years, Maris three-and-a-half years and Mihai 12 months.

Update: Sentence Increased

20th September 2010. See  article from newhamrecorder.co.uk

Two men who forced a teenage Romanian country girl into prostitution after conning her into coming to London had their unduly lenient jail sentences increased by top judges.

Vasile Oaches was originally jailed for two-and-a-half years, and Vasile Maris for two years, after they were convicted of trafficking for sexual exploitation and controlling prostitution.

But they have been increased to four years and three years, respectively by the Court of Appeal.

Lord Justice Hooper said the sentences, imposed at Croydon Crown Court in May, did not reflect the seriousness of the crimes.

Both accused will be deported when they have finished their prison terms.

A shopkeeper has been fined £53 for selling pornographic magazines on the bottom shelf of his store.

Saeed Ahmed who runs News World in Kirkcaldy was shocked when police came in and told him he was being charged and that the magazines would be taken away as evidence. However, he admitted a charge of indecent display at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court.

It is the first time in at least ten years that someone has been prosecuted under the Indecent Displays (Control) Act 1981.

Police were tipped off by the Front Page Campaign, which is opposed to the early sexualisation of children by the media. Amy King, who founded the Front Page Campaign, said: The pictures are very unsuitable for children – it's a public place, they should at least have a frosted cover or something.

King founded the campaign group last year, in opposition to the easy accessibility and visibility of pornographic magazines. It now has 2,000 people on its mailing list and Facebook page. She said: The media plays a big part in the premature sexualisation of children. People are going in and out of shops all the time with these things on display and it desensitises us to what's inside.

She added: I hope this will send a message to other shopkeepers, but I don't think a £53 fine is a deterrent at all. I am sure he makes a lot of money out of these magazines and £53 will be neither here nor there. It is a big disappointment.

Two women who ran a brothel which earned almost £500,000 were told by a judge that it was a model for how such a business should be run if it was ever made legal.

Monika Campbell and Lisa Gaskin ran the 133 Club in Leeds under the guise of a luxury massage parlour between March 2005 and September last year.

Leeds Crown Court heard that the pair were meticulous in their running of the business keeping accounts, reliably paying income tax and rates and arranging for health advice and condoms for the women using the premises.

Sentencing the pair, Judge Scott Wolstenholme said that there was no exploitation of the employees or nuisance to the public and if brothels were ever legalised it may be the way you were running this business may be the model of how it should be done.

However, he added: The fact is, it is illegal. Parliament has not legalised brothel keeping. You knew it was illegal but carried on making a good living out of it and here you are now in the crown court.

The judge said that he did not see the need to jail them, particularly as they would be facing draconian confiscation proceedings and they were given a 12-month community order with 50 hours unpaid work.

Judge Wolstenholme told them the confiscation hearing fixed for September would mean they would end up having all your realisable assets seized where appropriate.

A woman has been jailed for three years after being convicted of running a successful brothel that took thousands of pounds a night.

Emily Murphy, who went by the name Lulu , ran the brothel in Euston Road, London, for two years.

Murphy had organised the women, spending anything between 20 minutes and two hours in the brothel each night, a court heard last month. She printed calling cards, organised rotas, collected takings and left instructions for the prostitutes.

Police found timesheets, price lists and notes telling prostitutes how much they owed her for her services.

Southwark Crown Court took less than three hours last month to find her guilty of controlling prostitution for gain, concealing criminal property, false accounting and possession of false identity documents.

A couple who ran an escort agency which employed a serving police officer made almost £500,000 through prostitution, a court has ruled.

Husband and wife team Neil and Natalie Lock were in charge of the internet-based company which advertised girls to hire for sex.

The couple also owned and rented flats across the north of England, including South Shields, where working girls could take customers wanting to pay for their sexual services.

And they were in charge of NG (Notorious Girls) House in Bury, Manchester, a purpose-built three-storey brothel equipped with Jacuzzis.

Judge John Milford, sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, ruled the couple had made £447,804 from their illegal enterprises.

But he ordered Natalie Lock, who has no remaining assets, to have £1 seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Her husband was told his £43,826 in assets will be seized under the same act.

The pair hit the headlines last year when it was revealed one of their employees was serving Northumbria Police officer Victoria Thorne, from Washington, who was sacked and jailed for 15 months because of her conduct.

Neil Lock admitted a series of charges relating to running brothels, managing prostitutes and abetting Thorne's 'misconduct'. He was jailed for four years for that, as well as drugs and weapon charges.

Natalie Lock was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for managing prostitutes and brothels, as well as perverting the course of justice.

The court heard during the sentencing hearing last year the escort girls paid almost 30 per cent of their earnings to the couple, but could make up to £2,500 per week.

Two Hungarian nationals who trafficked young women into Britain and forced them to work in north London as sex slaves have each been jailed for eight years.

Joszef Budai, 24, and Andrea Novak, 20, were sentenced at Croydon Crown Court after being convicted of a string of trafficking and prostitution offences. Delivering his sentence, his Honour Judge Simon Pratt described the case as the closest to human slavery as you could possibly get .

During the trial, the court heard how the pair lured a series of young Hungarian women to the UK with the promise of lucrative work. Some of the women knew they would be expected to engage in erotic work but were attracted by promises that they would earn more than £1,000 a week. Others had no idea they would be working in the sex industry.

On entering Britain, the young women were taken to a flat in Glenmore Road in Belsize Park, where they worked servicing clients from 9am until 2am. The pair charged individuals £140 an hour for the young women's services, but kept the majority of the cash for themselves - giving their victims pocket money for food. Some of the young women were barred from leaving the flat, while at least one was physically, mentally and verbally abused.

Novak and Budai were each found guilty of three counts of conspiracy to traffic in to the UK for sexual exploitation and received two years for each count to run concurrently. They were also found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to control prostitution for gain and sentenced to two years on one count and six years on the other count, to run concurrently, making a total of eight years each.

A couple have been ordered to do 250 hours community service.

Jacqueline Beckles and Michael Bird were arrested after a police investigation into another man uncovered images of the acts on his computer.

Beckles admitted four counts of illegal intercourse and three of possessing extreme pornography under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

Bird admitted four charges of procuring illegal intercourse and three of possessing extreme pornography. They were ordered to pay £250 in court costs.

A man has been fined for possessing extreme pornographic images featuring women, horses and dogs.

Matthew Jones pleaded guilty in January to four counts of possessing 188 images on DVDs and a laptop.

He was fined £1,000 at Guildford Crown Court.

Laura Plant, prosecuting, told the court that the man had in his possession both still and moving images downloaded from the internet. She added: It's mostly horses and dogs I'm told, and adult females having intercourse with them or performing oral intercourse on the animals.

The court heard that police discovered the images on a laptop and DVDs under a bed after they carried out a search of Jones's house on March 4 last year.

In addition to the scenes of bestiality, there were also pictures described in court as being of an extreme sadistic nature likely to cause injury to body parts, and images depicting severe bondage and extreme piercing.

Richard McConaghy, defending, said possession of the images had become a criminal offence just over a month before they were seized. He added: While it appears some of these images were downloaded in this gap, the majority of them were things he had for longer within his possession. Most part of the criminality comes from not disposing of these images.

Before sentencing, Judge Michael Addison viewed some of the pictures. He told Jones: These are serious offences because the making of images of these sort must be discouraged.

Update: Back Up Charges

19th February 2010. See article from getsurrey.co.uk , Thanks to Harvey

The Dangerous Pictures charges seem to be back-up charges after the court ordered that the guy should be cleared of child porn charges (perhaps due to no evidence).

A couple have been jailed today after running a prostitution business using girls trafficked from Nigeria.

Thomas Carroll an Irishman, and Shamiela Clark his South African wife, controlled their multimillion-pound business from Castlemartin, Pembrokeshire.

Among the prostitutes were six trafficked girls, aged from 15 to 21, some of whom had been terrified into working for fear of breaking a juju oath they were forced to take during voodoo ceremonies in Nigeria.

Carroll was jailed for seven years, and Clark for three and a half years, at Cardiff crown court, after both admitted conspiracy to control prostitution for gain and conspiracy to 'money-launder' (ie use ill-gotten gains). Carroll's daughter, Toma, was imprisoned for two years after admitting 'laundering' the profits which, in one year totalled more than £800,000.

The couple ran more than 35 brothels, mainly in the Irish Republic, from the rented Welsh farmhouse to which they fled after coming to the attention of the gardaí.

The Nigerian women and girls, who were not trafficked by the defendants, were among prostitutes supplied to the ring. One girl was 15 when placed in one of the Carroll brothels.

Of the 15 prostitutes caught in the police raids on Carroll's brothels, some were from South America and Europe and willingly worked for him.

Some of the 6 trafficked women lived in fear of juju oaths, made during terrifying and humiliating rituals they were forced into by traffickers. An important part of the oath was each was told they had to pay back, on average, £65,000 to their traffickers. If they breached the oath, they would die, or their families back in Nigeria would die.

Investigations continue to track down those responsible for trafficking them out of Nigeria and those passing them through Europe to Ireland.

Sentencing the defendants, judge Neil Bidder, told them: I'm not sentencing you for trafficking those women and accept you were unaware of the personal circumstance of the women who worked in your brothels and you were not responsible for any violence and threats of violence. But the Nigerian women who were threatened with dreadful coercion all ended up working for you. You did not ask and did not care what personal tragedies had befallen those women submitting for your profit.

The couple will now be subject to confiscation proceedings to seize the proceeds of their crime.

Update: Confiscated

5th June 2010. See article from westerntelegraph.co.uk

Haverfordwest magistrates have confiscated over £17,000 from a father and daughter convicted of money laundering, conspiracy to money launder and to control prostitution.

Update: Appeal Rejected

26th October 2010. See article from milfordmercury.co.uk

The man who headed a family-run chain of brothels around Ireland and Wales has failed to convince top judges his seven-year jail term was excessive.

Thomas Joseph Carroll was jailed at Cardiff Crown Court after admitting conspiracy to control prostitutes and launder money.

Lord Justice Hooper, sitting with Mr Justice Butterfield and Mr Justice Kenneth Parker, remarked on the hefty scale of Carroll's vice operation, which reaped turnover topping 1million euros in one financial year. He was behind 35 brothels in Northern and southern Ireland, the court heard, and must have been well aware of the climate of fear under which the women worked.

His sentence was not manifestly excessive , the judge concluded, dismissing Carroll's appeal.

Update: Money Grabbing

20th March 2011. See article from bbc.co.uk

Thomas Carroll who ran an international prostitution ring has been told to hand over nearly £ 2m of his criminal profits or face another 10 years in jail.

He will have to sell four Welsh houses, three South African houses and four cars, including two Mercedes.

He is serving a seven-year term for vice and money laundering offences.

Judge Neil Bidder QC at Cardiff Crown Court ruled Carroll's assets were purchased with the proceeds of crime.

The owner of a Belgian sex shop posed a puzzler for European judges yesterday – does a coin-in-the-slot peep show count as a cinema?

If it does, then it qualifies for reduced-rate VAT under EU tax rules.

Belgium's tax authorities say the cubicles for private film viewing at the Erotic Centre in Bruges are an automated recreation device , and the owner must pay VAT at the normal rate of 21% instead of 6% for a cinema.

Lawyers for the owner told a hearing in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg that cinemas are explicitly identified as a cultural exception under EU VAT rules and only attract the lower VAT rate applied to normal cinemas in Belgium.

The exact question posed to the EU court in legal documents asks: Should a cubicle consisting of a lockable space where there is room for only one person and where this person can watch films on a TV screen for payment, where this person personally starts the film projection by inserting a coin and has a choice of different films, and during the time paid for can continually modify his/her choice of projected films, be regarded as a 'cinema'?

The three-judge panel is not expected to make a site visit, and their verdict, which could affect peep show operators across Europe, is expected later this year.