Hookers being 'cleaned off streets' to boost London's image before Olympics

Police have arrested 44 prostitutes in Tower Hamlets since January - a similar number were arrested in the whole of 2011, according to figures.

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According to Toynbee Hall, an anti-poverty charity based in Tower Hamlets, the number of sex worker arrests has also surged in Newham, home to the Olympic stadium.

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Figures show that 14 arrests for prostitution were made in the borough in 2010 - 2011. Last year that figure rose to 37 arrests.

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Newham Police have closed 80 brothels in the last 18 months, according to a paper written by Andrew Boff, a member of the London Assembly spokesman for the Conservative group on the Olympics.

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Only 29 were closed in London’s 32 other boroughs in the same time period.

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Prostitutes are being told to stay away from parts of Newham under ‘mini Asbo’ bail conditions. They are also facing curfews from 10pm to 6am, according to Toynbee Hall.

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One sex worker told the charity she was not allowed onto the street where she lived after 8pm.

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Sex work is legal but brothel activity is illegal in the UK.

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“This increased activity has happened disproportionately in the Olympic boroughs,” the Daily Mail quoted Boff as telling The Times.

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The Met Police launched the human exploitation and organised crime command to tackle vice-related crime in the five Olympic boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, Hackney and Waltham Forest, in 2010.

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The team’s mission is to make London a ‘hostile environment for traffickers’.

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However, while police claim to be responding to increased sex trafficking fears ahead of the Games, Boff said he found no evidence to support the notion.

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He also highlighted that brothel raids had taken place in areas where there had been no complaints from residents.

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“My worry is they are clamping down on prostitution without these complaints,” he said, adding a ‘more tolerant’ approach to brothels in Merseyside had cut street prostitution in half.

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A spokesman for Tower Hamlets council told The Times: “The work we are doing with the police to tackle prostitution is not related to the Olympics. Our residents have raised it as a concern.”

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Elsewhere in the capital 11,000 volunteers have taken part in 1,000 clean-up events, including picking up litter, removing graffiti and sprucing up wasteland.

The nine-mile Regents Canal is also being cleaned-up ahead of the Olympics.

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