Support for GPS tracking for prostitutes

Published on Monday 11 August 2008 10:53

AN Edinburgh-based prostitute support group has backed plans to monitor vice girls by GPS in a bid to stop them being attacked.

Ruth Morgan Thomas, manager of Scotpep, admitted the scheme could be expensive, but could save the lives of sex workers on the streets.

The plans aim to make prostitutes safer by enabling them to send a message to a central point saying when they will start working and when they are due to finish for the night.

If they don't phone in on time, an automatic alarm is triggered allowing a GPS tracking system to kick in.

Ms Morgan Thomas said: "In principle we absolutely back schemes like these. Some of them are expensive but what price do you put on a life?

"If something like this had been on offer in Ipswich in 2006 would five women there have been killed?"

The scheme is to be trialled at the Glasgow hostel where Emma Caldwell, 27, was last seen alive in 2005. Her body was found a month later in woods near Biggar.