In March 2005, some of SW5's staff were at a conference where the Lesbian & Gay Foundation (LGF) launched a booklet called the Good Escort Guide for male escorts, covering a wide range of issues.
We like most of it a lot, and it's inspiring us to combine our existing leaflets along with new material into a booklet.
However the law around sex work is a fairly specialist area, and there are some potentially serious mistakes in the booklet's legal section:
Page 13: Importuning - this offence has gone (in England & Wales anyway). Men are now covered by the Street Offences Act 1959, so it's "an offence [..] to loiter or solicit in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution".
Page 14: Working for an escort agency - it's entirely legal for the escorts to sell sex. It's the owners of the agency who would commit the offence of "controlling prostitution for gain" (the offence mentioned of "living off the earnings of a male prostitute" has also gone...)
.. in a brothel - again, the workers are legal, and it's the owner and managers who commit the offence.
.. 16 or 17 - we think it's worth mentioning that the 16 or 17 year old doesn't commit an offence by selling.
.. controlling someone else's sex work - this is only illegal if they're under 18 or if you gain from it (or you know someone else does). If you don't control the work, gaining from it is legal.
.. advertising - it's illegal to advertise "on, or in the immediate vicinity of, a public telephone" (and phones in places where under-16s are not allowed don't count!) This is the only specific ban.
It's also legal to advertise someone else's services - again, if you don't control the work, you can gain from it...
Page 15: If you are arrested - the situation is slightly more complicated. The 'Notice to Detained Persons', what the police say to people they have arrested, is currently
"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
(When it was introduced, following the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, a poll of lawyers showed that many of them didn't understand it!)
So the 'right to silence' remains: you don't have to answer police questions... BUT if you are asked, for example, "where were you at 1pm today" AND you don't answer, AND you are tried for some offence, AND you say then "at 1pm I was ..." THEN the court can ask itself why you didn't say so when first questioned and decide it was because you've since made it up.
This is one of the reasons why it's important to get legal advice before and during any questioning.
If you'd like a copy of the booklet, you can download it from the LGF site, or we've a version with the legal corrections here. (PDF file, 1,020k bytes!)
We fully acknowledge the LGF's copyright on the booklet, but we think it's particularly important that people working for agencies or in brothels, or who are under 18 do not think that they're working illegally: if they have problems - from punters, management or anyone else - it will make it much less likely that they would seek help.
Thanks again to the LGF for producing the booklet and for acknowledging the few errors.
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