Pleepsie

The old adage 'a little of what you fancy - does you good' is probably the best advice ever!

VW Beetle - the best thing since sliced bread as far as I was concerned.

That is the whole point, they 'the coppers' don't 'do' anyone these days, it is not a crime to sell your body. It is a crime to parade the streets trying to sell yourself. As the whole business of prostitution has moved on from being a few women who earned a living at selling themselves, to a multi-million international crime based business which exploits vulnerable women ( and I am proposing that being drug dependant definatly makes a person vulnerable), the police have long since moved on from the old fashioned idea that it is the woman who is in the wrong, to recognising that it is the men who control the drug availability that make money at the expense of women through prostitution. The Police are more inclined to try and trap someone who is grooming children for sexual purposes than to try and trap a prostitute, and I for one am more than happy for my taxes to go towards that. Police these days do not waste time triyng to 'trap' people who advertise perfectly legal services.

No, soliciting is when a person approaches or accosts someone with an offer of sexual services in return for payment

[quote name="Ghostrider Which in practical circumstances makes prostitution illegal to perform' date=' even if the act itself isn't. How can anyone get as far as the act itself legally, if going looking for it and offering it are both illegal?[/quote] Well, they could try the old 'business' card in the phone box trick, or advertise as a masseuse "available for Executive relief" in the personal pages of local newspapers. My local rag fairly abounds with thinly disguised adverts touting for trade, and there is of course the internet! So I don't think that keeping them off the streets need pose too much of a problem.

An interesting post DamnSaxon, and once again I point out that it is not illegal to be a prostitute. What is illegal is soliciting on the streets, which is how most prostitutes ply for trade. These days prostitution is no longer about a few girls working an area, but has become big business for gangs (in particular from Eastern Europe) and that does need the full force of the Law to stamp it out. The attitude of the police today is that it is the men who should be prosecuted, and the girls who do seek police help are always looked after and are taken to a safe place, they are not 'charged' as used to be the case many years ago. They are treated with compassion and respect.

http://www.sw5.info/law.htm The introduction of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 means there have been several changes. Age It is now illegal to pay for otherwise legal sex with someone who is 16 or 17. Controlling someone under 18's prostitution is a more serious offence - no element of gain is necessary and the penalties are up to fourteen years in prison. Streetwork The laws on working on the street have become 'gender neutral'. Anyone, male or female, on the street (or on a balcony or in a window) can be found guilty of soliciting for the purpose of prostitution. Streetwork is one of the few areas where clients of adult workers can get into trouble too - anyone kerb-crawling (approaching other people from or near a vehicle they've just got out of for the purpose of prostitution) is particularly at risk, not least as their vehicle can now be seized. In fact it is illegal in general to persistently solicit anyone on the street for the purposes of prostitution, but this is much less fequently prosecuted, not least because if they are in fact prostitutes, they don't count for this law! Working alone indoors, or for an agency or in a brothel All remain legal. Provided the worker is at least 18, buying sex from them is also legal. 'Pimping', running an agency or brothel All remain illegal. But controlling another adult's prostitution is now only illegal if you gain from it (or know that someone else does). Looked at another way, gaining from someone else's prostitution is now legal: it's the control for gain that's illegal. It is legal for someone to choose to offer, and another to pay for and enjoy, a service they choose, as the law now stands.

I am well aware that there are women who do make the choice to be prostitutes, whether to feed their drug habit or just to make money, But a huge quantity of women are kept as sex slaves. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6459369.stm Young women tricked into coming to England, often by boyfriends, are being sold off in auctions at airport coffee shops as soon as they arrive. The Home Office estimated in 2003 that 4,000 women were trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation. It is thought the figure may have grown since. Child protection organisations and human rights groups also believe there are thousands of child sex slaves in the UK. A Home Office spokesman said: "Human trafficking is a particularly horrible crime, based on deceit, exploitation and very often brutality. "I was kept locked in the house for two weeks - he raped and slapped me every day"A sex slave victim's story Sadly 'forcible means' are used every day in the grim world of prostitution. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2547626.ece Investigations have uncovered evidence of auctions in Peterborough where men – gang bosses and brothel owners – buy and sell women for between £500 and £3,000. The women are then virtual prisoners in rented houses in residential areas such as New England and Millfield, just north of the city centre. They are afraid to go out and receive none of the money paid by their “clientsâ€. Mr Wate said: “Many of the women we found were simply too terrified to talk to us. Very few were prepared to say they were being held against their will. They’ve been threatened.†"The woman was afraid that her captors would kill her and her family if they knew that she had talked to police. She had a friend whose back had been broken in a beating by the brothel owners." Yes, much better than selling beer and fags in the local corner shop. http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,,2164270,00.html Meanwhile, illegal brothels are on the increase in Nevada, as they are in other parts of the world where brothels are legalised. Nevada's illegal prostitution industry is already nine times greater than the state's legal brothels. "Legalising this industry does not result in the closing down of illegal sex establishments," says Farley, "it merely gives them further permission to exist." The women are expected to live in the brothels and to work 12- to 14-hour shifts. Mary, a prostitute in a legal brothel for three years, outlines the restrictions. "You are not allowed to have your own car," she notes. "It's like [the pimp's] own little police state." When a customer arrives, a bell rings, and the women immediately have to present themselves in a line-up, so he can choose who to buy. Then there is the fact that legal prostitutes seem to lose the rights ordinary citizens enjoy. From 1987, prostitutes in Nevada have been legally required to be tested once a week for sexually transmitted diseases and monthly for HIV. Customers are not required to be tested. The women must present their medical clearance to the police station and be finger-printed, even though such registration is detrimental: if a woman is known to work as a prostitute, she may be refused health insurance, face discrimination in housing or future employment, or endure accusations of unfit motherhood. In addition, there are countries that will not permit registered prostitutes to settle, so their movement is severely restricted.

^^^ So was I. I cannot think of a single thing occuring that would make me want to move away. Not even if Gordon Brown wins the next election Interestingly in your 'maybe' choice of Australia, abortion is illegal in all but Western Australia ( since 1998) unless performed to prevent serious danger to the woman’s physical or mental health.

There is nothing that would make me want to live in another country. We have everything the heart could desire right here in the UK.

18 votes for yes, 3 for no. I think it would be interesting to see what gender the voters are. I am female and I voted No. One thing is for sure is that large quantities of young women from Eastern Europe are brought here every year under the pretext of working as waitresses, and are then kept prisoner in the sex trade. Fear of reprisals against their Families keeps them subdued. Hefty fines and prison sentences for men using prostitutes would soon bring a halt to the trade. ( I would also put their photos on display in their local town) Take away the demand and the supply would soon dry up.

Even the liberal Dutch admit that exploitation and trafficking of women isn't stopped by having legal brothels. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7005768.stm "The Dutch city of Amsterdam is to close one-third of the brothels in its famous red light district. " "The mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, said that although prostitution was legal in the Netherlands, there was too much of the sex trade in the city centre." "He also said that the trade involved exploitation and trafficking of women, and other kinds of criminal activity. Prostitutes in Amsterdam's red light district ply their trade in neon-lit street windows and the area's seediness has always been part of its attraction for tourists." "If the windows close down, women who are being exploited will be hidden somewhere else where union representatives and health workers can't make contact with them," spokeswoman Metje Blaak said" So it would seem that even with 'union representatives' the women are still exploited.

Definatly not! The whole business of Prostitution is the exploitation of vulnerable and usualy poorly educated women. I know the cry of ' they make their own choice' is sometimes vaunted, but prostitution is usualy forced on women - and children - who are dependant on an often violent and abusive male. At this point I accept that there are some high class whores, but these are few and far between and usualy have Richard Gere in a Naval Uniform somewhere around I was recently in India and was taken for a tour of the poorest areas, which included a visit to the 'cages' (the local name for the red light area). I can assure you that no woman on gods earth would have sex with the men I saw trawling up and down those lanes, no matter how much money was being offered. Sadly those poor women were made to perform their duty and for less than the cost of a coffee in Lerwick! Prostitution is degredation.

Yes, but only in the last month.

I can say with certainty that I would have shown the effects of private grief on my face and bearing in the 5 months before being made a suspect. If you look at the photos and news videos of Kate Mccann in the first 5 months she is shown looking remarkably well. It is only in the last month, since she has been made a suspect that she has shown any traces of strain. My point is, that in the Spanish TV show, is that she is completely emotionless. There is no creasing of facial muscles , no red eyes, nothing to show genuine grief, and apart from shielding her eyes, and a brief wipe of the face ((wiping away a tear) which was followed by the tucking of her hair behind her ear) there is no trace of raw emotion. Even if you allow for her putting on a 'brave face', the complete lack of any emotion is weird. Perhaps she is just unfortunate in having a stony face, but I think you will find that this aspect of her is just difficult for most people to accept.

How can you insult the beauty of Stilton by adding Apricots Its a crime against cheese!

This quote regarding Kate Mccann is from the interview with the Spanish TV channel: She appeared to have tears in her eyes as she said repeatedly: "We still have hope." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=489783&in_page_id=1770&ct=5 I actually have tears 'running' down my face when I stub my toe on the leg of the bed. I'd be howling my eyes out if my daughter was missing!!! (I know the daily mail is a tabloid - but this was reported in all the online papers, I just chose a tabloid to wind Newmagne up )

Surely, you mean incline?

Many thanks Fjool for unlocking this thread. Lets hope we can all keep a cool head when replying to posts. I think it is important to keep threads that reflect the topics that are in the news alive - even though we occasionally overstep the bounds. Once again I thank the moderators for keeping an eye on things - thankless task though it is.

The 'differences' of the locals in Shetland is no different to the behaviour of any English or Scottish village or small town. The locals are a clannish bunch from one end of this sceptered isle to the other. In Shetland it just happens that nearly everyone a local meets is related to them by blood or marriage (often going back generations), and this makes for a family feel to the island (not so good when bad behaviour is reported back to parents! ). I can't comment on Scotland but should imagine that a similar thread runs through it. I know from personal experience that the same applies to England, there they say you have to live in a village for 25 years to stop being a stranger

May I offer my most humble apologies for having the temerity to offer a quote from a tabloid paper. I do hope that the Telegraph meets with your approval. Perhaps you would supply a list of newspapers that satisfy your highbrow tastes and I shall endeavour to use only those. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/09/nmaddy109.xml

Front page of the Express today. Interesting to note that the McCanns claim of 'contamination' has been taken into account and has had no impact on the findings. http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/21471

Who, I wonder, has been calling in favours to get this chap to be removed? http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gZ2x7nrTfmf9KOkd8FkzISf3nHbQ So happy to cooperate that they refused to answer around 50 questions!!

Making Money by Terry Pratchett - he just keeps on churning them out, and I just keep on reading them

Now why would the British Police sanction bugging the McCanns unless they had good reason to do so? I believe they have to get the thumbs up from the Home Secretary first. http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1507092007 "THE parents of missing Madeleine McCann believe their mobile phones and emails are being bugged by British police, it was reported today. Kate and Gerry McCann are convinced buggings are being carried out on behalf of Portuguese detectives who suspect the couple accidentally killed their four-year-old daughter and hid her body. A key part of the investigation is said to concentrate on emails and calls between the McCanns and their friends. One source reportedly said: "There's a firm belief Kate and Gerry were listened to in Portugal and that it's happening now they're home. That belief is based on information they received during the investigation. " Also reported in the Mirror. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/09/20/mccanns-phone-bug-fear-89520-19817687/