Life Inside Britain's Legal Red Light District | Sex, Drugs & Murder

There is a guy, you know.
He goes round asking you to, like,
either sell him the condoms that you've used or to get him some used
condoms, so he can drink it.
Do you think he's maybe done a little bit of, er...
spontaneous actions with another man?
Tasted his stuff and thought, "Oh, ey-up,
"I like that taste. Better than milkshake."
You care for someone and they hurt you.
He's just been using me the whole time.
Drugs take up a lot of your time.
You're either working to get money for them or chasing,
trying to buy them and then taking them.
I've been described as a professional shoplifter.
10.99, 9.99, 11.99.
That was just a two-minute job.
It's quieter than usual.
Lighter days. People like dark.
People don't want to be seen.
I've started a methadone script
I've got an appointment for on Thursday.
So I've got things coming together.
Apart from I ended up in hospital yesterday
when I had some funny gear.
Sent me a bit wappy.
There's a strong batch of heroin going round, yeah,
that's mixed with something called fentanyl and there's quite
a few people dying from it.
So, yeah, it wasn't right clever to take it, knowing that, like, but...
It's just sent me a bit funny in the head and somehow I've ended up out
of my house on the street being sick
and the neighbours phoned the ambulance.
About an hour later, when I started to come round and I've realised,
I've thought, "Oh, my God.
"Where the fuck am I?
"I'm in the hospital. How embarrassing."
I was like I was doing acrobatics or something,
I couldn't keep still.
They've put some straps over my legs and arms and then
I thought, "What the fuck have I got straps on my legs and arms for?"
SHE COUGHS
That gear that's killing people...
..have you heard about it? It's not gear, though,
it's, erm...fentanyl.
You know... You know what they use...
It's meant to be 100 times stronger than morphine.
It's what they use, you know when you've been in an operation
and, like, you're coming round?
For things like that, and it's killing people.
So when you take stuff, you just know it's not going to be bad?
No, cos you're not thinking of that,
you're thinking about, like, your habit and stuff.
Do you know what I mean?
Look what one of my, er,
admirers have brought me.
That's well cute.
I'll be getting past it for the beat soon.
I will. There's people go down there and they're in their 50s, you know.
I wouldn't dare.
But you do get granny-shaggers, don't you? Do you
think I'm a granny now?
I'm nearly there, aren't I?
The first time I ever started doing that, I said,
"I'm only doing this for a short while. Six months."
Ten years later, I'm still at it.
Ten years.
Do you think you'll go another ten years? No.
I'm not having another ten years of this.
Fuck that.
Do you worry about the competition from younger girls?
No, cos I'll fucking rearrange their face if they do.
I really do.
I wouldn't. I'm not nasty, am I?
Do you know how many people have stopped me,
asking for younger than 16?
I've smashed windscreens and everything over that, you know.
Paedophiles asking for kids.
How do I know he's not going to leave me and pick up the next
teenager on her way home from, like, after school or something,
do you know what I mean? Cos it's only eight o'clock when it
starts and it's still light out there.
And how do I know he's not going to go and snatch one of them because
there's not one on the beat? They're kids.
They're babies. It's... That...
I've been through that and I know what it's like for somebody to do
something to you what you don't want to do.
I feel a lot more safer having Stacey here,
cos she's keeping an eye on me.
It might do her good. It might do her the world of good, to be honest,
cos she went down a spiral road and
she might not've been able to come back from that if she just stayed
out here, to be honest.
She's my younger sister.
She works.
Down the red-light district.
As and when she needs to, really.
Erm. She has been fighting drug addiction.
But she's getting through it and she's helping me along the way.
I met a guy that works with other girls and he's like set them up and
stuff and I started doing...
dressing up and taking pictures, just put them on the site,
webcam work, do you know,
and doing things over the webcam and that and they do pay more money than
they do on the street. Erm.
Yeah, there is a big difference, to be honest.
How did the working on the beat come about?
It was just a friend
that did the same and we went down there together.
And yeah, it was just easy money at the time.
It's the easiest thing to do,
do you know, with the pictures and stuff like that.
Even with the webcam, you've got to wait for the money.
It's not cash there and then.
But it's just quicker to go on the street down there.
I haven't been eating much.
With obviously not having enough...
Well, not having no money to be able to get anything to eat,
to be honest.
Erm. And then when we have, we might have got a sandwich or something,
but we've shared it between us both and that might be it for the day
or two days. That's why I've been getting these...
..nutrition things to help.
You know, they fill you up.
In order for you to get by,
your sister is going out on to the beat for you?
Yeah. It sounds bad that, doesn't it?
The police come. A big, burly officer as well, against me.
And he went, "You've got to leave."
I said, "I'm not going nowhere, mate."
And he went, "Oh, right then."
And went.
I know what the time frame is. I've been evicted before.
They send you a threatening letter like what I got,
then they take you to court, and the time frame from them processing
the order to the court order and the order is exactly three months.
Exactly.
I'm boiling some water in the kettle in the microwave so I can just have
a wash, cos we haven't got no gas.
I know it's a little bit cold, but...
...I've dared her to wear it to come out.
Is it...? To go down there.
She doesn't really wear dresses.
Well, I don't, but it looks lovely.
As long as Stacey tells me it looks nice, then I'll wear it
because I know... I'll tell you straight. Yeah.
You know, other people down there are going down there looking rough.
If I look best out of them all, then they're going to come to see me,
aren't they? I'll get more custom.
It does boost my confidence
when I go down there and I'm getting all the attention because I look
nice and everyone else is not getting attention
because I look the best.
Yeah, I feel good.
There are still people out there that still...
..just want a woman, any woman,
old or young.
Come on then. I won't let her go on her own.
I have to write the reg down and the colour of the car
and a rough estimate of a time.
What would be a reasonable amount of time?
Approximately 20 minutes, half an hour,
and if she's going to be longer she'll text my phone or send me a
blank message. Do you ever get the men approaching you, thinking...?
Yeah, I've had men approach me loads of times.
And I tell them, "No, I don't work, sorry."
It's just not me. I just can't bring myself doing it.
It's just not my...not my thing.
Yeah, he has stopped.
Mmm.
I should go up.
You want some business, darling?
I missed that reg because obviously she walked down and it was right
behind that car down there.
But I wrote
the colour of the car and that down but
I couldn't see the reg at all down there.
I need to get in touch with her.
Pretty quick.
Where she's been picked up from she'll be dropped straight back on
this road where she's been picked up from, you know?
But when she comes back, she'll be getting told.
I gave him a blow job.
20 bar.
He wants to meet be back here Friday.
HORN TOOTS
Wants to meet me on here on Friday.
At eight o'clock. You weren't supposed to go.
You weren't supposed to go anywhere. I didn't get the reg.
I only got the colour of the car.
Good job he looked after me, then, innit?
And you didn't answer your phone either.
We just ask you, Father,
that you will let them know that there is hope,
that there is a future, God, amen.
ALL: Amen.
18 years ago, I was a crack and a heroin addict,
living on the streets.
In and out of prison, having been an addict for ten years.
Nobody, my family, the prison system, rehabs,
different relationships,
nothing helped me and this was the only thing that helped me.
You know, we don't have all the answers, in a sense.
We've got no magic cure.
The journey is a long journey.
# The mighty God we serve... #
I always say, you know, the ones that are really desperate,
then they'll give it a try.
# The mighty God we serve... #
I was trying to hide from them.
They do your nut in.
You believe in God, don't you?
They do, like, a residential programme, I think, for...
Yeah, they do, yeah. Is that something you'd consider?
Yeah, I would.
I went, "Fucking move, now."
She's gone now. Because she does things without protection, right?
And I don't do that.
I look after my safety. If she starts doing it, right?
Then more punters are going to get used to it, aren't they?
Do you know what I mean? And then they'll start coming, like,
trying to demand it without and you're putting yourself in a...
I know it's a high-risk situation doing what we're doing anyway,
but to make the situation, like, a million times more riskful
doing it without condoms.
She's a Bradford bird on our beat and doing shit like that.
Bradford's known for shit like that.
This place is not.
There's lots of them like that, especially if they're desperate,
someone will say, "Do you do it without?"
They're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on."
You know, cos they're just desperate.
I've had them offering me, like, loads to do it
and I just won't do it.
I don't care how desperate I am.
A few times, I've caught people trying to pull it off.
You know, like, if you're bending over for sex and I'll say, "Right,
"that's it. See you later. You just fucked yourself up now."

Life Inside Britain's Legal Red Light District | Sex, Drugs & Murder - Episode 9

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