Dangerous liaisons: A prostitute in the red light district of Leeds

Under the dim orange glow of a street light, a woman in vertiginous pink heels and a tight miniskirt is tottering towards a darkened car.

She is young, early 20s, and walks with her head bowed low in the driving rain.

The driver, in his shiny black Audi, rolls down the window, they exchange a few words, and within seconds she hops in the passenger seat and is gone, lost to the night.

It is still early, just after 8pm, in the Holbeck district of Leeds, a poor, working-class industrial heartland south of the city centre.

A halting stream of cars passes warehouses and office blocks — some occupied, still lit by late-shift workers, others long dilapidated — on the main drag.

Most motorists don’t slow down, anxious to get home safely to their homes and families in more salubrious neighbourhoods. But others do.

Behind the glare of their headlights, drivers can be seen scanning shadowy footpaths and alleyways for Holbeck’s more notorious residents.

Sure enough, before long, another woman appears — this one older, maybe 30, with a shock of curly dark hair and a hardened, self-assured expression. She is shivering, pulling her red raincoat across her chest.

A car approaches and she leaves her post underneath a railway bridge. With barely a word to the driver, a bald man around 20 years her senior, smoking a cigarette, she slips into the front seat. As they drive off, she stares blankly into the blackness ahead.

It may sound like any other red light district, the dark underbelly of prostitution, drugs and petty crime sadly found on the rough fringes of most cities. But Holbeck is different.

For this is Britain’s first ‘legal’ red light district, a controversial scheme allowing prostitutes to ply their trade on the streets at night without fear of arrest.

According to rules laid down by Safer Leeds, a partnership between the police and the council, officers will turn a blind eye to seedy activities in this part of the city, as long as they take place between 7pm and 7am.

It’s a groundbreaking, yet alarming, initiative, which has caused understandable outrage in Leeds and beyond.

But this week the scheme, introduced as a pilot in October 2014 and quietly in operation ever since, was hailed as so successful that it will now continue indefinitely.

It has, the authorities say, improved the safety of prostitutes in Leeds by encouraging them to report crimes and, what’s more, reduced complaints from the public by a third.

Controversial scheme: Officers will turn a blind eye to seedy activities in this part of the city, as long as they take place between 7pm and 7am

This, however, is far from the story told by residents, local business owners and even the sex workers themselves.

They say the Holbeck ‘managed area’ is a particularly dangerous one, with violent robberies, rivalry between prostitutes, Class A drug use and little or no police presence to stop it.

On the two consecutive nights the Mail visited the red light zone this week, no police car was seen over a period of several hours.

And things have recently taken a chilling turn for the worse. In the early hours of December 23, the body of a 21-year-old Polish prostitute, Daria Pionko, was found behind an electrical substation on a deserted industrial estate within the zone.

She had been savagely assaulted, with horrific injuries to her head and face, a crime for which a 24-year-old man is now in custody.

It was just three weeks after her brutal murder that the pilot scheme was made permanent, a decision that seems to demonstrate not only ill-judged timing but a disturbing willingness to ignore reality.

Karen Hargreaves, 54, who lives five minutes from the centre of the red light district, says daily life in Holbeck has come to be dominated by the squalid nightlife.

‘Before 2014 there was some prostitution in this area, but it was mostly poor local girls who had hit rock bottom. Now it’s become a magnet for sex workers from all over the UK, as well as abroad. They used to keep a low profile but now they flaunt it because they know the police won’t do anything.’

Karen owns the Sunrays beauty salon on Holbeck Lane, the main road in the area. ‘I used to stay open until 8pm but I’m too frightened to do that now,’ she says.

‘I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to one of the girls who work for me. I have to warn them never to stand outside while waiting for a lift.’

Once, she says, her teenage daughter, then just 15, was propositioned as she walked through the area.

‘She was petrified and is now too scared to walk around here after dark. I don’t blame her. A few months ago a girl who had overdosed was found lying by the side of the road.’

In nearby Domestic Street, Peter Saxton says he often has to pick up condom wrappers and used syringes from the grassy bank opposite his terrace home.

In the early hours of December 23, the body of a 21-year-old Polish prostitute, Daria Pionko (pictured), was found behind an electrical substation on a deserted industrial estate within the zone

‘The prostitute situation has been really bad here for a number of years,’ he sighs. ‘The street corner is like a taxi rank for them. Sometimes, getting home late, I’ve had prostitutes trying to get into my car.’

In the past few years, Peter has seen two young families come and go from the house next door, frightened for their families. Today, no children live on the street.

Although Holbeck has never been affluent, it was once a friendly, tight-knit community, with well-kept green spaces and safe, tidy streets.

On the industrial outskirts, prostitution has bubbled under the surface for more than a decade, but residents say making the red light district official has brought it into the open.

One homeowner, 59, who doesn’t want to be named, tells us: ‘This used to be the sort of area where no one was afraid to leave their doors unlocked. Now we have bars on them. No one goes to the shops after dark.’

Sometimes, getting home late, I’ve had prostitutes trying to get into my car Resident Peter Saxton

Mother-of-three Kelly Monk, 41, has considered moving away from her estate on the red light zone’s boundary many times.

‘It brings so many undesirable people to our area,’ she says. ‘It’s awful to find people doing things in cars late at night. Why should we have to put up with such things?’

Inevitably, all are worried about the impact such squalid activities, ‘legal’ or not, are having on house prices.

‘My business is my pension,’ says Karen. ‘My husband and I own the building and, when we retire, we plan to sell it. But who’ll buy somewhere in the middle of a red light zone?’

So how do the people behind the ‘managed area’ defend it?

Leeds has hundreds of prostitutes and the question of what to do about them has been on the council’s agenda for years.

Prostitution — paying someone for sex — is not in itself illegal, but all the activities associated with it, such as soliciting and kerb-crawling, are. Until recently, the policy in Holbeck was one of zero tolerance: anyone found kerb-crawling or soliciting was cautioned, arrested or fined up to £1,000.

This, however, only shifted the prostitutes towards quieter, leafier parts of town where they felt they were more likely to escape detection. Complaints from homeowners soared.

So the police and the council agreed to try turning a blind eye to these illegal activities in Holbeck between 7pm and 7am, claiming it would contain the problem in one sparsely populated area and make it easier for prostitutes to report crime or exploitation.

Superintendent Sam Millar, of West Yorkshire Police, says it was part of a plan to ‘do things differently’.

‘The issue has existed for many years in the Holbeck area and the previous enforcement-based approach did little to change the situation.

A used needle discarded in the UK's first 'legal' red light district in Leeds. Soiled underwear, used condoms and drugs paraphernalia are found in the area

A used condom discarded in the area

‘The managed area has significantly improved the relationship between sex workers and the police, giving them the confidence to report offences. This has directly led to the convictions of dangerous offenders.’

Councillor Mark Dobson, meanwhile, says the joint approach is a ‘pragmatic’ one.

‘I accept there are always people who will have a moral objection to prostitution,’ he says. ‘But it’s an industry as old as time and it isn’t going to stop. It’s incumbent on us to make it as safe as possible.’

As for the impact on those living or working near by, organisers insist that community relations are good.

A report evaluating the success of the scheme last September found there was ‘broadly support’ from adjoining businesses, but we found little evidence of this.

Ben and Maryam Ghiasei, who own Ben’s Kitchen cafe on Holbeck Lane, say being inside the official red light area has been extremely damaging to their small business.

‘We’re not happy,’ says Ben, 40, who opened the cafe with his wife, 32, four years ago. ‘When I come to work at 6am there are women gathered outside the door.

‘It’s disturbing when they walk towards you or hammer on the window, and our customers don’t like it either. People will stop coming if there are prostitutes in here.’

A few doors down, Melvyn Besbrode, owner of Besbrode Pianos, has put up an iron fence to stop sex acts being carried out against a wall outside.

Ian Staines, managing director of Fresco Group flooring firm, says his staff regularly have to dodge soiled underwear, used condoms and drugs paraphernalia to get into work.

‘I’ve seen sex acts committed in my car park in broad daylight. My employees, particularly the female ones, are intimidated, but the police seem to ignore our complaints.’

Simon Day, deputy managing director of marketing company dR agency, agrees. He says the problem is most sorely felt by businesses, such as his, that open past 7pm.

‘It’s intimidating. Male employees have been offered sex; female employees are approached by kerb-crawlers. They use our gardens as a toilet. In the past we could call the police, but now it’s “legal” there’s nowhere for us to go.’

Although the designated zone is well known to the prostitutes and the men who frequent it (a map is available online and was recently printed in the local paper), locals say lewd acts often take place outside it.

About half the prostitutes are English, some locals and others from Manchester, Sheffield or Liverpool. Some have been here for years; others arrived 16 months ago when the ‘legal’ red light zone was introduced.

The other half are European, mostly Romanian, Hungarian and Polish. There is fierce competition between the nationalities, with British prostitutes furious that newcomers are stealing their turf and charging cheaper rates — sometimes as little as a quarter of what the British women charge.

On busy nights there can be up to 30 of them lurking on corners and in alleyways. Some look like teenagers, just 16 or 17, while older women try to conceal their age. Looking young ‘pulls the punters’.

All are keen to shift the blame for litter and troublemaking on to rival nationalities.

We meet 32-year-old Rachel, a mother of four from Leeds, who has worked as a prostitute in Holbeck for ten years.

During the day she is dressed down, in jeans and a leather jacket instead of a flimsy dress and heels. Her eyes are weary and her skin sallow.

This is Britain’s first ‘legal’ red light district, a controversial scheme allowing prostitutes to ply their trade on the streets at night without fear of arrest

‘I got into this when I was 16 after a friend told me you could get paid for having sex,’ she admits.

‘Back then it was to feed a drug habit. Now I’m clean, but I do it to provide for my children. On a good night I can make £1,000, but I’m happy with a couple of hundred.’

Rachel was initially pleased to see the area made an official red light zone, but says the influx of foreign prostitutes has made it dangerous. She was one of the last people to see murdered Daria Pionko alive.

‘You get girls beckoning punters down alleyways where their boyfriends are waiting to rob them,’ she says.

‘Or they’ll hug them goodbye and take the wallet from their back pocket. Then sometimes the blokes come back with friends and beat the girls up.

‘I’ve had bricks and bottles thrown at me. One threatened to come at me with a water pistol full of bleach. The area has changed because the foreign girls are turning it into a freak show, parading around in frilly knickers and flashing at passing cars.’

Later that night, Rachel takes us on a tour of the area, pointing out the regulars and the newcomers huddling in groups by the roadside.

The temperature is a few degrees above freezing and rain is lashing down, but many are dressed in little more than underwear, jacket and stilettos or knee-high boots.

They are disturbingly vulnerable, their safety supposedly assured by their burly minders or ‘boyfriends’, who occasionally drive past and glare at anyone lingering.

Rachel introduces us to Vanessa, 35, who works on the street to feed her crack cocaine addiction. About 90 per cent of prostitutes in the city are hooked on Class A drugs.

‘The area may be tolerated, but it needs to be more controlled,’ she says.

‘It’s not what you’d call safe. Some of the blokes around here are downright crazy. That murder was always going to happen.’

For now, the council is sticking to its success story, but says the area is constantly being reviewed and changes may be made.

To residents’ horror, there has been talk of the hours in which prostitutes can officially work here being extended. A similar scheme has been suggested in Newport, South Wales.

Though business is brisk in Holbeck, one place remains dark and deserted. It’s the spot where Daria was murdered, which happens to be opposite a building belonging to Leeds City Council.