In a passionate article in today's Observer, Katharine Raymond, a senior adviser to the former Home Secretary David Blunkett, reveals that he wanted to liberalise the law, allowing 'managed areas' for prostitutes similar to those in mainland Europe. Experts say that such areas would mean that sex workers, such as the five women killed around Ipswich over the past month, would be at less risk of attack.

 

Today Raymond, who was one of Blunkett's trusted special advisers overseeing prostitution policy for more than three years, calls for the legalisation of prostitution and argues that current policy is 'a disgrace' caused by 'political cowardice' and public indifference.

'The uncomfortable reality is that, while these pitiful girls and women cater to an eternal consumer demand, their lives are being put at greater risk by the lamentable failings of both government and law enforcement,' she says.

Raymond's attack is significant because it is the first account from inside the Home Office of how attempts at liberalisation foundered. She worked closely with ministers in drawing up a consultation paper called 'Paying the Price', which she said was designed to trigger a 'serious debate' about legalised brothels and red-light zones managed by local councils.

It comes as The Observer can reveal that Interpol has now been called into the Suffolk inquiry amid suspicions that the murderer may have fled abroad and that he is thought to have killed with his bare hands.

Yesterday Suffolk police released poignant CCTV images of what is thought to be one of the last sightings of one victim, Anneli Alderton, on a train between Harwich and Colchester on 3 December. Detectives are appealing for information about where Alderton - who was about three months pregnant when she died - went next, including where she left the train.

In the footage, she is seen wearing a black jacket with fur-lined hood, grey top and jeans, with her hair in a ponytail. Seven days later, her naked body was found in woods near Nacton, outside Ipswich.

In her article, Raymond argues that the Ipswich murders illuminate the double standards that govern prostitution, with politicians and senior police officers frightened to wreck their careers by endorsing reforms. She said the consultation paper she helped to write - which proposed, among other options, managed zones patrolled by police, where sex workers could safely take their clients and a register of licensed prostitutes - ran into trouble almost immediately:

'In Whitehall, only a handful of politicians and officials wanted 'Paying the Price' to see the light of day. At the Home Office, the department ultimately responsible, we were divided between those eager to publish - and be damned if necessary - and those wanting the whole issue simply to go away.'

Raymond says there was 'opposition from Number 10, which was terrified of a hostile media response'. The paper eventually surfaced only because Blunkett wanted what he called a 'grown-up debate'. However, a few months later he resigned following allegations over his lover's nanny obtaining a visa and the issue passed to his successor, Charles Clarke.

The result, says Raymond, was a 'watered-down series of proposals' that has still not been implemented.

Blunkett, who has remained loyal to the government from the back benches, insisted yesterday there was no pressure from Downing Street and blamed the previous reticence of many commentators now advocating reform for the fact that it came to nought.

A spokesman for Blunkett said: 'His only regret is that insufficient contributions were forthcoming from so many of those now commenting on the circumstances surrounding the tragic murders in Suffolk and, had they done so at the time, it may have been possible to have had a sensible debate about the issues then.'

When the paper was eventually published in July 2004, it duly triggered hostile comments from media and, more crucially, the police.

After consultation the then minister, Fiona Mactaggart, published proposals in January this year offering only a minor change, allowing a maximum of two prostitutes to work together for safety from a flat. Tolerance zones were ruled out.

Home Office sources last week declined to say when the law might be changed to allow even this limited reform: John Reid, the Home Secretary, is said to be reluctant to debate the issues while the murder hunt continues.

Raymond, however, argues that the 'useless' laws governing prostitution should be scrapped and brothels legalised, with pilot experiments to show whether managed zones can work, too. Liverpool council had been poised to start such a pilot in the wake of the Home Office's initial consultation, but needed a go-ahead from ministers that it did not get.

Potete scaricare il video Ni coupable ni victime versione italiana girato dalle Sexyshock alla Conferenza europea dei e delle sexworkers tenutasi a Bruxelles nell'Ottobre 2005

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