Met needs to move away from criminalising sex workers, officers say after Levy failings

The Met need to move away from criminalising women involved in street sex work in the wake of the Simon Levy case, officers have told the BBC.

Levy, a convicted sex offender, was left to kill two women and rape another - all of whom were vulnerable and sometimes engaged in street sex work - due to a series of failings, including by the force.

Now the Met is piloting a new two-officer female team in north London to engage with street sex workers, in a bid to improve trust and encourage them to report crimes committed against them.

The Levy case exposed grave failings in policing and also the inherent tension in its approach to street sex workers.

Sex work is legal in the UK, excluding Northern Ireland, but related activities like soliciting for clients in public places - known as street sex work - working together, or brothel keeping, pimping and advertising sexual services are all illegal.

Street sex workers are also often targeted by police using anti-social behaviour powers.

Many women who require protection naturally fear arrest and do not trust officers to investigate violence.

The BBC joined a patrol with the two plain-clothed female officers who run the new Met scheme, Operation Amicus.

They described hearing about endemic levels of male violence against the women they have met, who come from a cohort of 80 women in the area identified as involved in street-based sex work.

"Every single one has reported something," one of the officers said, "whether they've been raped, they've been punched - they've been attacked in some way, shape or form."

The officers, whom the BBC agreed not to name, said several women have been too scared to report abuse to the police.

The officers described encountering an appalling situation in which women are repeatedly attacked by men but think the police cannot be trusted to help.

Some women "expect to be raped and sexually assaulted by customers - it's just become the norm, so [they think] what is the point in reporting [it]", one of the officers said.

The new team added that they were trying to help the women to formally report crimes.