From April 1st , paying for sex with someone who has been forced into prostitution is illegal. If you even suspect a woman has been threatened or coerced do something about it immediately. Contact the charity Crimestoppers anonymously. Those trite little sentences reveal exactly what is corrupt and wrong with this legislation Section 14 of the Policing and Crime Act โ the client cannot properly walk in as a law abiding customer and walk out a criminal because he will not have had a fair trial.
Yet the law as currently enacted presumes Common Purpose or Joint Enterprise with the exploitative person and convicts, not only without proof, but without the right to any trial at all, a travesty of justice if ever there were one. It is true that certain minor motoring offences are dealt with on a strict liability basis, but in those cases it has to be made absolutely clear in advance where and when the restriction begins and ends.
That is exactly not the situation when a client meets a prostitute. The client will of course be led to believe that the prostitute is not being exploited whatever the actual circumstances are. Furthermore, the client is not even the person guilty of the primary wrongdoing, ie, the exploitation, but is in fact being automatically convicted, as a secondary defendant , because of the wrongdoing, of which he knows nothing, that has already been committed by someone else.
And without the right to a fair trial, or in fact to any trial at all. That is like saying that if I stay too long at a parking meter and get a ticket, the next person who parks there must also pay a fine whether he is guilty of an offence or not.
The right to a fair trial for any serious or contentious criminal offence has been endemic in British law for hundreds of years. Very little legislation has ever dared to violate it like this. No doubt this legislation will receive extensive scrutiny from the judiciary when cases begin to be brought to law. Poverty and drug addiction aswell as trafficking and domestic abuse provide fertile ground for the sexual exploitation of women. Do they think that women enjoy selling sex โ that it is oh so empowering?
