Sex for sale in shadow of Government HQ

Published on Friday 28 March 2008 09:36

SEX is for sale in a flat barely 200 metres from the Scottish Government headquarters at Victoria Quay (pictured below) in Leith.

The Evening News can reveal a brothel offering Eastern European prostitutes is being run from a flat in Tower Street (pictured below), only yards from the upmarket Malmaison Hotel.

Four young women work in shifts from the 250,000 flat, while a burly minder escorts customers inside the home.

It is the latest in a string of brothels set up in private flats across the city, and police today said they would investigate the Tower Street operation. The brothel has been set up a few minutes walk from another establishment in Ocean Way where two illegal immigrants were found working as prostitutes last May.

When the Evening News visited the flat yesterday afternoon, our reporter was asked to use the buzzer at the back entrance. The minder invited our reporter into a spacious, but sparsely furnished, living room where a woman in her late 20s, dressed in black jeans and a low-cut top, sat cross-legged on a sofa reading a magazine.

Another woman in a yellow top was cooking in the kitchen, but the minder said she was not working. In broken English, he said: "I only have one girl today. But she is very good. If tomorrow you come back, then I have two."

The minder said he and the women were Eastern Europe, while four different prostitutes worked from the premises.

The woman then detailed the prices she would charge for a variety of sexual services, at which point our reporter made an excuse and left. Minutes later, the minder followed our reporter down the street before returning to the flat.

Neighbours seemed oblivious to the activities in the flat. One woman said: "I don't like the idea of something like that happening in my street. I hope the police do something about it."

Yesterday, prostitutes were also working in flats in Dalry, Easter Road, the Pleasance, and Fountainbridge. Around 18 such establishments are thought to be operating in the city at any one time.

Earlier this year, the News reported how high-profile patrols on the streets of Leith, coupled with the new anti kerb-crawling laws, were succeeding in driving out the vice trade. Police said the new law had seen a big reduction in street prostitution.

But Independent Lothians MSP Margo MacDonald said it was a mistake to think the prostitutes had disappeared. In January she told the News: "They are on the move and they are indoors, but they are being discreet about it."

A police spokesman said: "We treat all allegations of this nature seriously."

MADAM RAN A BROTHEL FROM HER TINY FLAT

A WOMAN was caught running a brothel from her tiny flat in the Capital after police suspected her of human trafficking.

Officers had thought Mary Thomson, 47, was importing illegal immigrants into the country and searched her home.

But when they arrived at the flat in Grove Street, they found that she was in fact a madam and a number of girls – including an illegal immigrant – were working as prostitutes.

Thomson was arrested and 160 was seized.

Yesterday at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Thomson pleaded guilty to managing the sleazy bordello from October last year.

Miriam Labaki, defending, insisted that her client had not made any profit in her venture and said the brothel was a relatively "amateur operation".

But Sheriff Mhairi Stephen disagreed, telling Thomson: "Prostitution is never an amateur sport."

Thomson, who has moved house and now works as a cleaner, was fined 400.