Should there be a market for it Al and Adam Webb? I believe there is a market for child pornography as well - should we legalise that too?

Caroline , Windsor,

It beggars belief that hundreds of Eastern European women are still falling into the trap of thinking that "Uncle Vlad" or "This bloke I don't know but met in a cafe" is actually going to smuggle them into the UK and then set them up in a decent job.

Don't these horror stories make it back to the destination countries at all?

If we really want to stop this trade we would be well advised to help educate the women who might fall victim to these gangs *before* they end up hidden in the back of a lorry heading for Dover.

Also, as other reader have suggested, cracking down on the men using these brothels would help. Rather than the relatively lenient laws pertaining to paying for sex in a private house, the men visiting these brothels should be charged with rape because a slave can never have given consent for what was done to them.

Bob, Reading,

Surely this is 'enterprise Britain' as encouraaged by Gordon and his chums?

Free trade, free passage of services and goods within the EU, lots of new businesses, everyone encouraged to fulfill their 'potential'.

Things can only get worse.......

MarkS, Leeds,

If a punter has sex with someone who is being forced to be a prostitute, surely they and the pimp have jointly committed rape and both should be procecuted for that.

Matthew, Ringwood, UK

I bet the Labour party are proud now of their unchecked and uncontrolled immigration?!

Well done, you should feel ashamed of yourselves..

Hilary, London,

The response to any illegal problem seems to be legalise it then there isnt a problem any more." No more black markets" "Move it away from the dealers." The realities are a little more complicated. Would any of the contributers like their daughter to be part of the sex industry even if legal. in addtion there are plenty of illicit tradings in legal commodities beit cigarettes, alcohol or Disney videos. Where there's much theres brass I believe is the expression.

Dr MD, east kilbride, UK

The real tragedy is that people think this problem is new to Britain. It has become more prevalent since we opened our borders to all and sundry, but the problem is as old as the hills. The real surpise is that a senior police officer reached his rank without ever realising this problem exists.
Legalise the profession so that these girls enjoy the protection of employment legislation. As long as the goody two shows brigade keep trying to deny the reality of the sex trade the workers (as always) will be the ones who suffer.

KR, Stockport,

Legalising prostitution would only legitimise these gangs. It would not make prostitution a less profitable operation, but a more profitable one (fewer pay-offs where no secrecy is needed). It would also gloss over the sleaze and horror of the acts these girls are forced into.
Please give the police the resources to root out these evil slave-owners – then throw them out of the UK.

Max , London,

To David in Switzerland - A large part of the 'clients' are not UK people, but migrant workers from Eastern Europe. Their attitudes to (paid) sex are different from more Western countries & so they have created a sizeable market. I agree with the other comments above, but it would also help if the countries these girls come from highlight the dangers they face from people promising great wages in the west.

Rick Felbabel, guernsey, UK

What are the governments of these Eastern European countries doing to warn their young women of the dangers of seeking these supposedly innocent jobs such as waitressing etc? The UK government needs to ensure that these naive women are warned of the potential dangers back in their home countries. The whole situation is absolutely awful and illustrates clearly that despite living in the 21st century we might as well still be living in the Middle Ages. This is exploitation and human slavery and unless something is done the situation will only become worse.

Fiona, Warwickshire,

Re the EU Rod - it would happen with or without it but nice of you to piggyback on this as a showcase. Watch the film Trade about trafficking through America to see whether or not the EU will or wont help with this one and how long this slave traffikcing has been developing. Its the internet dummy.

Why are men going to brothels they KNOW are staffed by unwilling women. What kind of mindset is that?

jenny, London,

Surely no one is surprised by this?Come on! this is anything goes Britain! The cesspool of the World!

Alan, chigwell,

Living in a country with the highest HIV rate in the world is quite a harrowing experience. Shouldn't the concern be for the poor unsuspecting wives and girlfriends who are possibly contracting STD's from men who frequent these brothels. Come on guys, you're a first world country, you have the money and resources to stamp out this kind of thing....

Cammo, Durban, South Africa

I live in Thailand which is always presented by the news media as the centre of everything bad, including prostitution. But its not as bad here as your report shows it is in the UK. The men and women sex providers are free to do as they like, and there's no shame in what they do. The Thai name for them is - service persons.
Maybe there's something bad undercover here, there are many European women sex workers at the beach resorts somebody must have brought them here. But there is hardly ever any publicity about them. But as they need visas to enter the country as tourists perhaps this gives some records and control.

L. Vejjajiva, Phuket, Thailand

If rail companies can 'name and shame' fare evaders, why not have a similar scheme for people caught patronizing the borthels?

Dan, Leicester,

The politicians and police cannot be relied upon to deal with the problem of sex slavery. It really is the owness of the public to form their own groups to help victims of sex slavery.

D.W., London, UK

Repeated rape is something I used to associate with Nazi torture camps and Stalinist gulags, not somewhere just off Peterborough High Street. What in God's name do our politicians think they are doing ? We must not let GB get away with distancing himself from the disasterous decisions of the Blair years. Gordon was there at Blair's right hand all the way and did nothing to stop catastrophes like the Iraq war. How could anyone with a conscience vote for Labour now ?

chris, London,

I would just like to emphasise that the situation is complex in Peterborough. My observations are based on what is happening fairly openly on the streets at night and the majority of clients are immigrants and British Asians. If you name and shame them, most of the married ones will still never be found out by their wives.

L Chambers, Peterborough, UK

You only have to pick up the local newspaper in St Helens Merseyside, and read the classifieds, 'new to area' or 'dream girls' the paper is full of adverts for sex. This is a new problem and I have only noticed it over the last several months, but each week the number of adverts are on the increase. I really feel for those poor girls. It is about time the police force did something about it!

Sean, St Helens, UK

The problem is that no one, no one in any of the political parties will dare stand up and say that Britain has been wrecked by its immigration "policies" (or lack of them). No one ever asked me to vote for this wonderful "multicultural society" we now "enjoy" but now it is too late. And if you do say something,you are branded as a racist. Broken Britain, what a shame.

Richard Chapman, London, United Kingdom

Our Victorian forebears created the law of age of consent not, as is often assumed, to stop teenagers having sex but to enable the police to fight child prostitution. Any man having sex with a child would be automatically breaking the law. If men found using brothels risked going to prison, the demand which drives sex slavery would dry up.

Robert Blood, London, UK

A shocking article. I thought this is 21st century, not 5000 BC !! Someone must stop this appalling situation and bring the traffickers to justice. Someone must be turning a blind eye somewhere !!!!

Robert, York, UK

This makes the current tv series Belle du Jour double offensive and sickening, could it be a plot to soften public perceptions of prostitution and thus mute any criticism of any of the 'values' held by so many of the huge wave of immigrants to England.

How different seems the lot of the 'new prostitute' of today, from that portrayed by the blythe Ms Piper.

Ah well, some at least are 'enriched'.

helen, Norwich,

these criminals are life threatening to these naive women. Unprotected sex can be a death sentence. When caught these East Euro criminals should be put on trial for attempted murder.
The govts in the countries of origin should show ads and post info telling that there are no well paid jobs for unskilled young women except forced prostitution. Anyone who turns up at a UK port of entry without good evidence of a job to go to should be denied entry. Also someone is meeting these girls it is just a question of observing who they are. This modern slavery should be stamped out now with draconian measures. Never mind the civil rights of these thugs.
I wish posters here would stop talking about fascism in the EU.
Look at your TV, Zimbabwe and Burma and N Korea. That is fascism. For those of us who lived during the 2nd WW using this term inappropriately is offensive.

billcarr, turku, finland

The UK should look at how other countries have successfully tackled this issue and benefit from their successes.

For example, in Nova Scotia, Canada, men who are caught using prostitues are not only brought up on criminal charges, they have their names publicly published on a "John list". It's proved a strong deterent and has had a significant impact on the fight against prositution and sex slavery.

If the police close a brothel, the patrons will simply find another one, but if you take the "customer" out of the equation, you put the brothels out of business.

Krista, London,

If the Creator had the good sense to make sex not pleasurable
we wouldn't have all these problems like rapes, sexual assaults, prostitution, paedophilia etc. and the human beings wouldn't be around fighting each other as well as polluting the earth. The plant world and the animal kingdom are much better off without us!

Wing, Poole, UK

The police should name and shame the men who abuse these women as their "clients" e.g. they should put their names and addresses in the newspapers for all to read. It's all very well to target the gang bosses and traffickers but there must be demand for the abuse and rape of these women or else they wouldn't do it. Name and shame the rapists and make it clear to them that they have committed rape and will be charged accordingly and put on the sex offenders' register as a result. This is symptomatic of the licentiousness that is permeating all society and normalising immoral behaviour.

Other than that, however, I find it slightly implausible that these women all come from Czech Republic, Lithuania etc. These are countries with growing economies and no requirement for visas to the UK as they're EU members so it doesn't make sense that they would need to approach a trafficker to come here. Sounds like there is a more complex trafficking ring at the back of this.

MB, Edinburgh,

Identity Cards,National Service.Would end corruption.

derek bevan, Huntingdon/Cambs, England/U/K

These lowlife criminals should receive jail sentences that consume most of their natural lives. Then they should be deported to their country of origin and a bill presented for immediate payment to the country that produced this subhuman scum. Why do we have to tolerate and pay for all the trash that arrives from eastern Europe!

Richard, Woodham, UK

Doesn't this sad account say loud and clear that Britain would be BETTER OFF OUT of the EU?

Cllr Keith Standring, Bexhill-on-Sea, UK

QUOTE "Why do some people always blame Europe and the EU because we can't control our own borders - it has nothing to do with the EU.
I travel regularly in Europe and are constantly impressed by the lack of threatening atmosphere in towns and cities, the armed police who generally stand no nonsense from troublemakers, and the fact that most European countries, unlike us, seem to have no problem in deporting undesirables.
The problems in the UK are home made, and nothing to do with the EU - if they were, all EU countries would have our problems, and they don't." UNQUOTE

Very true statement!!!! Our problems are indeed homeamde

Lynette, London, England

There seems by many to be an obsession to blame multi culturalism or the EU.
Many of the people who organise and nearly all those who use these establishments are English. They ,as the article has stated have picked up a taste for this by visiting brothels in Eastern Europe.
Its vital for the Uk police forces to gain intelligence and help from the source countries and then come down full force on those involved once detected.

Antoine, Warsaw, Poland

what kind of "man" is frequenting these brothels?They are willing collaborators with the trafficers and must be prosecuted as same.

Kate J, Charlottesville, USA

Just another calamitous consequence of the looney liberalism that has swept British politics in recent years, partly due to the socialist EU agenda and partly due to the spinelessness of our politicians who can't think beyond the next election. If we learn just one lesson from the appalling suffering of these women it should be to ignore the grandstanding "tough on crime" empty propaganda spouted by Gordon Brown et al. at the Labour conference and vote tactically for a hung parliament. Our politicians must be made to suffer the consequences of their own incompetence.

John, London,

So prostitution is a victim less crime? Look around plenty of victims to spare. Maybe if prostitution was legal and above board then it could be regulated and the sleeze factor would be taken out of it...

Paul Bahre, Granby, CT

the constant drip feed of detrimental information which confirms what we have been saying all along with unregulated immigration just sickens us. What a wonderful government we have and no doubt they will tell us such people will be deported............like the killer of the headmaster who is shortly to be freed and cannot be deported|?

Enough, enough

Roz Venner, St Neots, England

As a lifelong resident of Peterborough, I can't tell you what a lift it is to hear Chief Superintendent Philipson speaking out in this way. Prostitution is always a complex issue and the violation of the rights and dignity of women involved in vice never seems to attract much serious concern. I have known several street-girls quite well, especially since the escalation in crack and heroin use in recent years, and in my experience, the most likely reason for police intervention, would be complaints by respectable female residents nearby, who get propositioned in error. Public concern for the prostitute herself has tended to meet with a blind-eye attitude of "We can't act where no crime has been committed."

We have always been a very multi-cultural city for a small place and Eastern Europeans have worked here since the brick-workers from the WWII prison camp. Many of us fear for the young women, but we also fear further jeopardising their situation.

Lesley Chambers, Peterborough, UK

Just think all this has been made possible by the Labour Party and their EEC cronies.
Before we were sucked into this EEC madness there was none of this, it can only get worse!
Since the Government has absolutely no intentioon of putting right all the wrongs of EEC membership and their immigration policies, it's probably only a matter of time before vigilante groups spring up everywhere and sooner or later, sadly, innocents will suffer along with the guilty.
What a mess! Mr Churchill would be appauled.

Clive Burghard, LANCING, ENGLAND

I can't believe how many men still feel prostitution is a victimless crime. It's not hurting anybody.

You're supporting an inhumane economy with way to obvious victims, be they foreign sex slaves or beaten/"trunked" girls from the hood.

Kar, atlanta, ga

welcome to the future of "England" under the labour party....

john, cambridge,

While reading the article I wondered if Britain has the power to deport immigrants who have broken the law. Apparently, from what Tony from Birmingham said, deportation is available. In that case, it should be used without hesitation. On a local level, and I hope I'm preaching to the choir here, the police keeping an eye on rental properties might prove useful. Perhaps Britain's voters nationwide could demand a campaign throughout other EU countries to advise women not to be lured to England with the promise of work. Perhaps some sort of toll-free telephone line could be created for women to call and see if such-and-such company even exists. I definitely agree with the 'naming and shaming' approach to anyone who uses a brothel. These men know full well what the conditions are like for the women enslaved in one of these brothels and, apparently care more about themselves than the plight of the women they abuse. In that case, they are just as guilty under the law as the brothel owners.

Julie, Jacksonville, FL, USA

Bring back the death penalty. A real deterrent for a disgusting crime.

Farrukh, Woking, UK

Here, here. Another frankly appalling side effect of Labours targets. And don't let me mince my words, the government is to blame for other forces not taking up this and exploring their own communities. No funding and ridiculous paper hours coupled with stupid targets which see officers making stoppages to do nothing more than meet a target.

If only more police forces could put out the effort in this way and not be scared away from real policing by our incompitent policy making government and its figures! Well done for your proactive approach.

Alistair Kipling, Birmingham,

15 to 20 "clients" per woman per day for unprotected sex, indeed where there is obviously no proper consent this is rape. The police should be picking up the clients, naming, shaming and jailing them.
Perhaps Health and Safety could go the johns instead of firemen and police officers.

Ross, Bristol,

Punish and expose the customers too. For as long as there's a demand, there'll be a supply. By fining and rediculing the men paying for sex maybe the bulk of these cowards will think twice before they go back.

Peter Jones, Cambridge, Kent

Britain was one the main proponents of the enlarged EU, including the Eastern European countries that seem to be the source of a lot of this trouble as well as dodgy plumbers. It was one of Blair's dubious ploys to deflect the federalist ambitions of the Franco-German-Benelux persuasion.
What goes around, comes around.

From this side of the Channel the UK's social structure looks fragile.

Andrew, Paris,

TV programmes like the Secret Diary of a Call Girl screened on ITV2 last night glamorise prostitution... this article shows what it is really like for many of the women conned and trafficked into it.

The best way to deal with it wouild be come down really hard on anyone caught using these establishments. UK citizens should be named and shamed, then face massive fines. Foreign nationals should be immediately deported (yes even if they come from the EU!) and banned from re-entering the country. Anyone caught running these places should face very heavy priosn sentences and automatic deportation if a foreigner.

Andrew brown, derby, uk

Just legalise prositution.. like in Holland, these 'profits' for criminals would be stripped. Set it up properly.. you can't stop it if there is a market for it..

Adam Webb, Mk, UK

Why dont the police just phone a few of these numbers, follow them up and hey presto you've found the brothel. Someone must own/rent each property and there must be some heavy collecting money. Then its off to Dover for the one way ticket home. Its not exactly difficult is it.

Also legalise prostitution. Each madam must have pay an annual fee to register the girls, proove earnings and sexual health. The income can then be taxed. Anyone outside of the law can then be hammered into next week through the courts.

Al, Newcastle,

More from the "wonders of multi cultural Britain" eh? Where would we be without it?

Steve Smith, Malden, Surrey

Why do some people always blame Europe and the EU because we can't control our own borders - it has nothing to do with the EU.
I travel regularly in Europe and are constantly impressed by the lack of threatening atmosphere in towns and cities, the armed police who generally stand no nonsense from troublemakers, and the fact that most European countries, unlike us, seem to have no problem in deporting undesirables.
The problems in the UK are home made, and nothing to do with the EU - if they were, all EU countries would have our problems, and they don't.

tony, birmingham, uk

This vile crime must be stamped out now.
The users of these brothels must also be charged as they are as complicit in the crimes as the scum that brings those poor girls into the country.

E.R. Mann, Warwick, U.K

I think that the old style bobby on the beat would have prevented a lot of this type of crime by simply either noticing tell tale signs that something was wrong,or by tip-offs from concerned neighbours.I know people will point out that Soho in the fifties had both beat bobbies and plenty of prostitutes,but I don't think that the women were bought and sold like animals as these women are,or duped into coming to this country on the promise of a respectable job.This activity will never be totally stamped out,but I'm convinced one reason for the choice of Britain by these gangs, is the lack of a visibile police presence.

Mike, Dunstable, England

Whilst it's extremely saddening to hear about the plight of such women forced into prostitution, their is obviously a large and growing market for such services. (...unprotected sex with 15 to 30 men a night...)

Surely it is also this problem that needs to be addressed and questions asked about our sexual activities, or rather lack of them, if men are going more and more to brothels.

David, Vevey, Switzerland

Welcom to the East European mentality. This policeman does seem to be naive or maybe he is like New Labour - totally out of touch with us English.

Frederick, London, UK

More of the "benefits" and enrichment of the EU! Even when these scumbags are caught, they will be given a slap on the wrist and then let free again to commit more crime a la Chindamo who we can't even deport for fear of violating his (sub) human rights.

The only solution to this problem is to take control of our borders and be in charge of our own laws and destiny. Not have them imposed on us by unelected beaureacrats from Brussels. The EU is a failed experiment in Socialism and it if were a company, it would have been closed down long ago - No audited accounts in the last 11 or 12 years. No auditor wants to sign off the corruption.

The simple answer is to demand the referendum we were promised by ALL 3 major parties in their manifestos at the last election. The British people did not ask for 2+ million foreigners to be allowed into the country in the last decade.

Otherwise, we are going to sleepwalk into a One World Government and a fascist New World Order!

Rod Polisher, Scunthorpe, UK