POLICE are urging victims of sex for rent deals to come forward after an MP’s campaign revealed they were illegal.

Peter Kyle has called for landlords who exploited their tenants with the arrangement to be prosecuted after the justice secretary David Lidington confirmed it was illegal under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

The Hove MP launched a campaign to stop the culture exposed in a BBC South East Today investigation earlier this year. Reports found a man offering a room for a tenant who would pretend to be his girlfriend, while another advertised a room in exchanges for “services”. Another advert in Brighton targeted young men.

Now the Ministry of Justice has confirmed there would be grounds for prosecution, carrying a maximum seven year jail term, Sussex Police has urged victims of the deals to report the crime.

Sussex Police Detective Superintendent Fiona Macpherson said: “A range of criminal legislation, including the Sexual Offences Act, exists to help deal with the sort of cases highlighted in the recent media reports, depending on the exact circumstances of each case.

“We would urge anyone who is or thinks they may be a victim of any exploitative activity in these or similar circumstances to contact us. Your report will be dealt with sensitively and confidentially, by specially trained investigators.

“As well as investigating they can also equally importantly help you to get access to sources of further advice and support.”

Mr Kyle said: “I now want to see this tested in the courts without delay because there are several of these adverts live right now.

“We could get this into action right away, this week. It has to be enforced this summer, in my view.

“There are university towns like Brighton and Hove where we have a housing crisis and a high number of students. This is making people uniquely vulnerable to sexual predators.”

Mr Kyle has also written to websites Craigslist and Gumtree to call on them to take steps to prevent the adverts, which are drawing in vulnerable victims, from being posted and to remove those already online.

Mr Kyle added: “I have said [to the websites] that I don’t believe they are committing a criminal offence.

“But I do believe there is a clear moral case for them being proactive and removing all such adverts and preventing any such adverts being posted again in the future.

“I’m offering to meet them to discuss, but I’m clear that if they fail to accept their moral obligation then, because of the fact they are profiting from these adverts, I would push for some criminal liability for their responsibility.”

Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor Paul Stimson from the CPS said: “There is no specific criminal offence covering such conduct.

"Any potential sexual offences committed between a landlord and a tenant would be dealt with under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.



“The CPS takes any offence of sexual misconduct exceptionally seriously and we have a specialist team to deal with the most serious cases, such as rape.

"Whenever a police force presents us with a file of evidence, we always apply the Code for Crown Prosecutors, first deciding whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed and then whether it is in the public interest to do so.”

While homeless charity Centrepoint welcomed the clarification on the law and the penalties committing such a crime could incur, it said steps must be taken to crack down on the arrangements.

Balbir Chatrik, of Centrepoint, said: "It's appalling the law wasn't clarified beforehand because we know young people are using desperate measures to get some kind of accommodation, some roof over their head.

"So it's great it's been clarified now, but we actually must ensure it's policed otherwise there's no point in clarifying it."