UK Legal News

A man has been convicted by Belfast Crown Court of prostitution and supposed human trafficking offences. Matyas Pis was convicted of the 'trafficking' of two women into the UK, controlling prostitution and brothel keeping.

It is is the first conviction for 'trafficking' in Northern Ireland.

Recorder Tom Burgess imposed a sentence of 18 months imprisonment followed by 18 months on licence.

On three occasions, between December 2010 and March 2011 Pis arranged for two women to work in Belfast as prostitutes. The women said they asked the Hungarian national to book their air tickets, and he provided them with an apartment in Belfast. The women paid the defendant rent for the apartment and paid back their travelling expenses. There was no allegation that the women were brought or held against their will.

Judge Burgess claimed that even though there was no coercion involved, any case of trafficking human beings was a serious case.

As this was the first time that the courts in Northern Ireland have had the opportunity to sentence someone for trafficking offences, the recorder set out guidance for the courts to follow until the Court of Appeal has had an opportunity to provide an authoritative guideline.

Two women who admitted managing a brothel at a Belfast apartment block have been jailed for two months.

Natacha Pociana from Brazil, and Sofia Matas, from Portugal, were arrested at Victoria Place.

Belfast Magistrates' Court was told both women, of no fixed abode, had admitted during police questioning they were working as prostitutes.

Bail was refused to an Antrim man who appeared in court alongside the women.

Robert Weir, 53 was charged with controlling the two women's prostitution for gain, managing a brothel and possessing criminal property (ie the money earned). He was remanded in custody.

A man and a woman from Birmingham have been jailed for sexually exploiting a Romanian woman who they tricked into coming to the UK.

Romanian nationals Ionut Nicolae and Vasillica Tirei lured the victim into leaving her homeland with a job offer. She was then forced to work as a prostitute at a house in Birmingham and made to sleep with nearly 2,000 men.

At an earlier hearing, a jury at Birmingham Crown Court had returned unanimous guilty verdicts.

The man, Ionut Nicolae, was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years. Vasillica Tirei received a nine-year sentence.

A man who ran a chaon of sex parlours in Maidenhead and Slough has been jailed for three and a half years.

Kunyi He ran 10 brothels across the South-east including branches in Portsmouth and Cambridge. He was found guilty of conspiring to keep brothels for the purpose of prostitution by a jury following a two-week trial.

Judge Peter Ross told the court Kunyi He worked as a partner in crime with his ex-girlfriend Ai Ju Su and Manjit Singh to run the brothels. But He took home the largest share of the profit which amounted to at least £200,000.

Kunyi He used fake ID's to pay rent, council tax, and to buy advertisement in the local press advertising high class oriental massages with a full, passionate service. Judge Ross said: One of the most serious features in relation to your case is the use of a forged passport. This court has seen this item and its high quality.

He's partners are due to be sentenced later at the same court.

A victim of the Dangerous Pictures Act who was caught in possession of around 2,400 pornographic images has been placed on Supervision for three years.

Judge John Warner made it a condition Robert Dunkley attends the Sex Offenders Group as he stressed, Some effort must be made to address your predeliction for this sort of sexual behaviour.

Dunkley, a man of previous good character, said he had downloaded the images and he admitted he was interested in bestiality. He pleaded guilty to possessing extreme pornography and he was further made the subject of a Sexual Offenders Protection Order and told he must pay £1,200 costs.

The judge said Dunkley had already been punished by his admission to having the images which featured bestiality and it was clear he had also engaged in chatroom conversations about the subject. He told Dunkley:

Having these items is firmly against the law. Although you tried to delete them you weren't successful and there was always the risk someone else could come across them.

Havinderpal Dhami prosecuting said a visitor to Dunkley's home accessed his computer and after the images were found the police were notified.

Tugba Atila was sentenced to 3 years in jail for managing 15 brothels in Tottenham and Wood Green.

They were staffed largely by women from eastern Europe who serviced local Turkish men, Southwark Crown Court heard.

The business was ended after undercover police carried out test purchases at one establishment in Seven Sisters Road, South Tottenham.

Atila denied four charges of controlling prostitution for gain and another of possessing criminal property at a trial last month -- but is on the run after failing to turn up to court a week later.

Sentencing her in her absence, Judge Michael Gledhill QC said: I'm satisfied she ran these premises in a bullying and dictatorial way, exploiting the vulnerability of these women, who for whatever reasons had fallen into prostitution as a means of making a living and who ended up working for her.

Susannah Stevens, prosecuting, said Atila and other brothel managers shared the working girls between 15 addresses. The working girls had to give up to half of their earnings to the brothel's controller.

Atila's helper Nesrin Coskun was jailed for eight months after being convicted of assisting in the management of a brothel.

Another unlicensed Soho sex shop on Walkers Court has been warned to cease trading as part of Westminster Council's long-running campaign against unlicensed shops selling hardcore DVDs.

Westminster Council allows a limited number of vendors of adult DVDs, magazines and sex toys to trade in the West End, but such businesses are obliged to pay extortionate licence fees that cost about £30,000 per year.

Enterprise chief Councillor Brian Connell said licensing council staff were working hard to put the remaining unlicensed sex shops in the streets and alleyways around Brewer Street out of business. Connell told the West End Extra:

 In my view, cleaning up the worst excesses of this trade is good for London and good for Westminster.

It's what we said we would do prior to the Olympics, so it is delivering on a commitment, and it also has the effect of making sure that legitimate businesses don't run the risk of losing market share.

In 1999 Soho had 61 unlicensed sex shops. It now has nine, and of these, the courts are set to hear three closure hearings in the coming year. The council's declared intention is for no unlicensed sex DVD shops to remain operational by the start of the Olympics.

Update: Meanwhile in Islington

3rd February 2012. See article from islingtontribune.com

Islington's last unlicensed sex shop has shut after a council raid found unclassified DVDs on the premises. Trading SubStandards and licensing staff visited DJD Retail, trading as Bookshop, at York Way in May last year, and seized DVDs and videos.

The sole officer of the company, David Darbo, pleaded guilty to eight offences under the Video Recordings Act 1984 at Highbury Magistrates' Court last month.

Darbo was fined £3,150 and ordered to pay £1,449 costs. DJD Retail admitted eight offences and was fined £100 for one offence.

The podcast is introduced as follows:

Well this week it's all about sex again! And you really probably should ensure your children aren't in the back seats if you're listening in the car. Awkward questions might abound. Ben, Kirstin and regular contributor, Jonathan Holt, talk with Alex Dymock once more following the verdict in the Southwark Obscene Publications Trial and are joined by Myles Jackman, one of Michael Peacock's defence team and journalist David Allen Green to discuss the merits of repealing the 1959 Act and what this verdict means for future prosecutions.

...Listen to the podcast

Sergio has also kindly listed articles discussing this R v Peacock case:

blog.indexoncensorship.org/2012/01/06/obscenity-trial-verdict-michael-peacock-pornography/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Peacock
www.freedominapuritanage.co.uk/?p=2042
janefae.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/news-feed-an-end-to-obscenity-law/
lawandsexuality.blogspot.com/2012/01/fisting-in-courtroom.html
www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/01/crown-court-prosecution
www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/01/peacock-trial-fisting
obscenitylawyer.blogspot.com/2012/01/obscenity-trial-of-decade.html
strangethingsarehappening.com/news-obscenitytrial.html
www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/07/obscene-publications-act-future-doubt
www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/06/obscenity-trial-law-digital-age
www.lawgazette.co.uk/blogs/blogs/news-blogs/an-obscene-waste-money
www.lawgazette.co.uk/obiter/bottoms-and-broomsticks
www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/01/obscenity-law-depraved-trial
www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2012/01/06/comment-are-we-seeing-the-death-of-obscenity
www.theweek.co.uk/law/44124/sleazy-michael-wins-obscenity-trial-over-fisting-dvds
quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/freedom-in-a-puritan-age-or-not/
timeritous.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/r-v-peacock-the-last-obscene-publications-act-prosecution/
sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2012/01/obscenity-trial-ends.html
www.solicitorsjournal.com/story.asp?sectioncode=2&storycode=19392
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16443697
mag.bent.com/news/not-guilty-verdict-in-gay-porn-obscenity-trial/

Chris Ashford has written an excellent report of the trial:

On Friday 6 January 2012, a historic case came to a conclusion in Courtroom 7 of Southwark Crown Court in Courtroom 7. Michael Peacock was unanimously acquitted, after a four-day trial that saw the outdated obscenity law of England and Wales in the dock.

Peacock had been charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 for allegedly distributing obscene gay DVDs, which featured fisting, urolagnia ('watersports') and BDSM.

Peacock had advertised the DVDs through Craigslist, his own website (which also promoted his services as a male escort), and in a magazine. The Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command (SCD9) or London's Metropolitan Police --- which encompasses the former Obscene Publications Squad --- saw the advert and began an investigation.

...Read the full article

R v Peacock

Michael Peacock has been acquitted of all charges after a unanimous jury decision to find Peacock not guilty on 6 counts of obscenity.

Michael Peacock (referred to in the gay porn world as Sleazy Michael) had been charged for distributing supposedly obscene DVDs including representation of gay fisting, urolagnia and BDSM.

The trial was heard before the Southwark Crown Court. The films in question feature: gay fisting (the insertion of five fingers of the fist into the rectum of another male); urolagnia (in this case men urinating in their clothes, onto each others' bodies and drinking it); and BDSM (in this case hard whipping, the insertion of needles, urethral sounds and electrical torture). Also there was an example of a staged non consensual scene.

The Obscene Publications Act 1959 features the contentious and ambiguous deprave and corrupt test, whereby an article (for example a DVD) is obscene if it tends to deprave and corrupt the reader, viewer or listener. The Test is defined in Section1 of the Act as:

An article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.

Peacock was represented by Nigel Richardson and Sandra Paul of Hodge Jones and Allen

Myles Jackman, a solicitor specialising in obscenity law, said this outcome was a significant victory for common sense suggesting that the OPA has been rendered irrelevant in the digital age.

In a tweet, Jackman said that SCD9, the Metropolitan Police unit dealing with human exploitation and organised crime, will meet with the Crown Prosecution Service and the British Board of Film Classification to review guidelines on obscenity.

And of course the authorities will be considering whether the law itself now needs changing. No doubt nutter campaigners will now be pushing for something new to replace the OPA now that it no longer supports their censorial views.

Speculation: So what may be the outcome at least in terms of BBFC censorship of R18s?

The BBFC have been cutting all such material citing the current interpretation of the Obscene Publications Act. But now of course this will change. The BBFC will still be at liberty to cut scenes off their own bat. And indeed the board has been regularly cutting scenes involving penetration by objects that could possibly result in harm justified via its own guidelines.

I think there will be a few changes welcomed by all sides. The current prohibition of female squirting leaves everyone totally baffled as to why. This prohibition can now be rapidly dropped. Perhaps urolagnia can now be generally allowed albeit with restrictions when it is considered by the censors to be degrading.

Perhaps something similar with fisting which could be generally allowed with a proviso that it must not be seen to be causing any discomfort to those participating.

The BDSM issue is not going to be easy. The current ban is at least easy to explain. To allow any level of hurt beyond trifling may prove very difficult to define. Maybe it is still banned by legislation examined during the notable Spanner Case, the judgement of which basically disallows people from giving consent to be hurt. So perhaps the BBFC will just switch justifications but continue to ban BDSM.

And I don't suppose that the non-consensual scene will impact BBFC guidelines at all. This will no doubt continue to be banned from R18s.

A sex shop owner hopes to mount a court challenge against Westminster Council in what could be a landmark case for Soho's erotica retailers.

Tim Hemming, who owns Simply Pleasure in Brewer Street, fears the cash-strapped council may be exploiting sex shop licence fees as a way of filling its coffers. He is seeking a judicial review.

A Westminster licence to operate a sex shop costs nearly £30,000 a year. Hemming, who owns 35 licensed sex shops nationwide, said:

This is supposed to be a non-profit-making fee, so they should be spending all this money on enforcement and administration. We don't believe they have got the evidence to prove they have been doing that.

I pay somewhere in the region of £200,000 yearly in licence fees. It's a strain on our bottom line.

He said the fees should be capped at £1,000 a year.

A decision on his review bid is due later this year.

The West End Extra understands his bid is being backed by five other central London adult DVD retailers who have attended summits on the issue over the past months.

The 3rd January 2012 marks the first day of the most significant obscenity trial of the decade; which will ultimately clarify the law on the representation of gay fisting, urolagnia as well as BDSM.

The defendant in the case, Michael Peacock, is charged on indictment with numerous offences under the Obscene Publications Act for distributing supposedly obscene DVDs.

The Obscene Publications Act 1959 features the contentious and ambiguous deprave and corrupt test, whereby an article (for example a DVD) is obscene if it tends to deprave and corrupt the reader, viewer or listener. The Test is defined in Section1 of the Act as:

An article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.

In this trial, which will be heard before the Southwark Crown Court, the films in question feature: gay fisting (the insertion of five fingers of the fist into the rectum of another male); urolagnia (in this case men urinating in their clothes, onto each others' bodies and drinking it); and BDSM (in this case hard whipping, the insertion of needles, urethral sounds and electrical torture).

These activities feature on the current list of what the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) currently consider to be obscene. Ultimately though, it is a matter for a jury to decide whether these acts are obscene by virtue of whether they deprave and corrupt the viewer.

Interestingly this case seems to have found unofficial tacit support from the BBFC; and the Metropolitan Police's Abusive and Extreme Images Unit (the Met's old obscene publications squad is now part of SCD9): on the basis that this case will establish whether the depiction of fisting and urination pornography is legal or not.

Hence, if the jury decides that such pornography is not obscene, on the basis that it does not deprave and corrupt the viewer; then it is entirely likely that both the producers and distributors of pornography will make such material available for sale, for example via licensed sex shops.

Consequently, this significant obscenity prosecution will either reaffirm or rearrange the boundaries of obscenity law.

Mr Peacock is represented by  Hodge Jones and Allen LLP..

...Read the full article

Update: Follow Live on Twitter

5th January 2012.  See article from lawandsexuality.blogspot.com

The #ObscenityTrial involving the issue of fisting (among others) goes into day three today.

If you're not already doing so, be sure to follow on twitter the excellent activist and scholar, @lexingtondymock. I'd also suggest following the journalist @NichiHodgson. Both have been providing fascinating coverage through their live tweets from the courtroom.

Many of the exchanges today would be comical, were they not so serious.

Sheila Farmer, a sex worker who worked with other women from premises for safety had charges of brothel-keeping dismissed in Croydon Crown Court. She worked with other women since being viciously raped and attacked whilst working alone.

Ms Farmer left court with over 20 supporters delighted and relieved that she no longer faces a criminal conviction and possible prison sentence. Ms Farmer suffers from severe diabetes and a malignant brain tumour. Her doctor had provided evidence that an onerous and stressful trial would have exacerbated her condition.

Sheila Farmer commented:

Whilst I'm relieved not to be facing trial I am angry that I was prosecuted. Will the person who made that decision now be held accountable for the 18 months of distress and upset I have suffered while waiting for this case to come to court? Safety and survival has always been my priority. Like hundreds of other women I was working to support my son and more recently to pay for cancer treatment. I would never have got through this ordeal without the English Collective of Prostitutes. Without campaigning we may not have got this result.

Cari Mitchell, English Collective of Prostitutes commented:

Sheila Farmer's bravery in publicly fighting these charges should be commended. She, like many other sex workers, should never have been forced to choose between safety and legality. Why is it legal to work alone but not with others? The prostitution laws are endangering women and should be abolished. Why are police wasting time and money prosecuting sex workers while rapists and racists go free?

Ms Farmer's trial was thrown out because of police and prosecution incompetence -- witnesses had not been asked to attend court and a key witness could not be found. Ms Farmer has attended court six times and the case has been listed to start on two previous occasions.

How much public money has been squandered on this investigation and prosecution? How many other investigations are being neglected as a result?

The conviction of two of Stephen Lawrence's murderers reminds us once again that the priorities of police and prosecution fly in the face of public opinion. Why did it take 18 years to try and convict these dangerous criminals while sex workers who do no harm are quickly arrested and jailed? The ECP has received multiple reports of violent robberies by a gang of five men in East London. The only police action has been to threaten the victims with prosecution. Why are women who report violence arrested while their attackers are not pursued?

Ms Farmer's legal team requested figures on the number of attacks against sex workers to demonstrate the high level of violence they face when working alone and the need for protection. The Metropolitan police said that no such figures are gathered. Why not? How can prostitution law and policy be assessed if their impact on sex workers' safety and welfare is not known?

Ms Farmer was represented by solicitor Nigel Richardson, Hodge, Jones and Allen and barrister Anna Morris, Garden Court Chambers. Supporters in court included representatives from Women Against Rape, the Sex Worker Open University and X:talk.