Neil’s Blog
By Neil Boast
Is it right that there are ‘Sex Ads’ in our local newspapers? Anyone can pick up the Evening Star and East Anglian and our local Free Ads and see advertisements that are entitled ‘Adult Services’. These Advertisments allow prostitutes to advertise. My belief is that they are wrong, both morally and lawfully and should be removed. They are banned in a great deal of London Newspapers following a successful campaign by community groups and the Metropolitan Police. The Sex Ads are not allowed in Cornish newspapers and other counties, cities and towns. Why can’t this happen in Suffolk, where we know the pain that this evil ‘trade’ can bring?
Up until November 2010 I was a Police Sergeant that ran a team that dealt with Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation in Suffolk. I had 32 years police experience and had worked on the ‘Steve Wright Murders’ (of five local women in Ipswich).
The team I worked with was set up as a direct result of those murders.
I also helped to set up and continue to be involved with the Town Pastors in Suffolk. I worked with my officers and social services to help those being sexually exploited. We wanted to help these people ‘exit’ prostitution and we were successful with several cases.
I also worked alongside the RSVP Trust, a Christian organisation that also wanted to achieve the same objective.
I am not a Christian but often state that “I have Christian Values. I have a conscience and if something is wrong I cannot keep quiet, no matter the cost”.
My former colleague WPC Janet Humphrey gives talks to community groups and often says, “young people do not say that when they grow up they want to be a prostitute”. It is something people are driven to, usually by drink or drug addiction, or they are forced into it by coercive or threatening criminals.
We worked hard to investigate brothels and prostitution advertised in the Sex Ads but it was clear to me that having the Ads removed would assist us in making a clear statement that Suffolk was a county that did not tolerate prostitution or sexual exploitation in any shape or form. The Ads are explicit in their nature and it is clear or inferred the ‘service’ that what they offer is sexual. Men using these services know that they are going to, or attempt to have sex. Everyone knows it, yet they are allowed to remain in the papers that pronounce moral judgements at every opportunity.
Our local newspapers were very ‘vocal’ in starting the ‘Someone’s Daughter’ campaign and clearly helped to shape public opinion and help in the police enquiry. I applaud them for that. Having local news Editors ‘on-side’ is often vital for Senior Police Commanders and they are loathe to ‘upset’ them!
In February 2010 I submitted a report to my Senior Officers expressing my concerns about the ‘Sex Ads’. I explained at length the problems we were encountering when finding men visiting the brothels we had raided that were advertised. The men stated that they “thought it was okay because it was in the paper”. In April that law made it an offence to use a prostitute or sex worker (in certain circumstances where the sex worker was being exploited). I detailed at length my argument and the Chief Constable was minded to agree. I believed that this would be the catalyst to have the Ads removed. My Senior Officers supported me and followed the lead taken by the Met’s ‘Vice Squad’ in removing Sex Ads from London Papers.
On the 20th August 2010 the Deputy Chief Constable wrote to the Editor of the Evening Star, Nigel Pickover, asking him to remove the Ads. The Sex Ads are actually controlled by a company called Archant. Mr Pickover responded 6 days later with a series of questions about the Ads and that the ‘debate was alive within ‘our Archant Suffolk Business’. Terry Hunt the Editor of the EADT was copied into the letters. A Manager of Archant came to visit my team several months after these letters and stated he was unaware of the correspondence and ‘debate’! The Ads remain to this day.
Archant make a lot of money from the Sex Ads so it would make a big dent in their profits if they were removed. I know that other Christian friends have contacted Archant who have stated they ‘co-operate fully with the police’. If so then why have the Ads not been removed? Human beings are being sexually exploited and the Sex Ads in our local papers ‘fuel this’. It is significant that papers in Colchester removed the Sex Ads. Look at our local papers and you will see lots of Sex Ads for Colchester so it must be worth advertising in papers.
I feel very passionate about this issue and have tried to stimulate debate in the press to no avail (what a surprise?!) The local radio, (BBC Radio Suffolk), do not seem interested and I certainly won’t get in the papers! Having spoken to a ‘source within the trade’ they stated that ‘Focus Groups were consulted about the Sex Ads did not have a problem with them’. Were these Focus Groups fully aware of what lives the sexually exploited people involved had? If they were then I am sure they would have objected and wanted them removed. Would the Focus Groups have wanted any of their children or anyone they cared about to be a prostitute?! Did these Focus Groups fully understand the misery of a Sex Workers life?
I know that the Ads are likely to transfer to the Internet BUT this would mean that a person has to deliberately search for them online and they are not casually placed in Advertisements in the back of a paper next to Agricultural equipment, where a front section announces the details of the ‘Someone’s Daughter Campaign’. Those who are the subject of the Sex Ads are also someone’s daughter! I fully support the work of ‘Someone’s Daughter’ but it does annoy me that the Ads remain in the paper where the campaign started.
Will my refusal to ‘give up’ on this campaign cause me grief? Yes, almost certainly. If my former senior colleagues do not want to upset Editors of local papers then I can be ‘painted’ as a disgruntled former Cop or ‘Moral Vigilante’. I am not. I am simply someone who knows that the Sex Ads fuel the trade in sexually exploited people and I cannot rest until I have done all I can to get them removed forever.
What can you do if you agree with me that the Sex Ads should be banned from our papers? You can write to Archant and the Local Editors of the papers asking for the Sex Ads to be removed. You can write to your local MP and councillor. You can stimulate debate and get your friends to do likewise. Public opinion can shape these issues. It has happened in America and we can make it happen here. I have started a Facebook Page called Stop Sex Ads in Suffolk Newspapers. Join if you support this please.
Thanks for your time.
Neil Boast – Ex Sergeant 426 – Suffolk Police – Retired
Neil Boast was heavily involved in establishing Town Pastors in Ipswich, and subsequently in eight other towns and villages around Suffolk, and he continues to help with the training of new volunteers. He retired from the police in late 2010
The views carried here are those of the author, not of Network Ipswich, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users. We welcome your thoughts and comments, posted below, upon the ideas expressed here.
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