POLICE are to send letters to kerb-crawlers warning them officers know what they have been doing.
Drivers whose cars have been spotted circling the city's red-light areas will have the letters sent to their home addresses. Those who are caught picking up prostitutes will face arrest and could be sent on a course or prosecuted.
Police will be targeting the kerb-crawlers as part of an ongoing operation to reduce prostitution in west Hull.
PC Lorraine Summerfield, neighbourhood officer for the Hessle Road area, said: "Even if we just see cars circling the block, but don't see them with a girl, we will be taking their registrations and sending letters to their home addresses. They will have a lot of explaining to do to their families if they see the letters.
"We know there are poor women out there who are sitting at home while their husbands are out trawling Hessle Road. We have seen men with girls who have child seats in the back of their cars and other men whose wives are very poorly, and they are still out."
The operation has been launched after an increase in the number of prostitutes working in the Hessle Road area. For the past two weeks, officers have been patrolling the area to speak to the women working on the streets and offering them help and support.
In the next stage of the operation, officers in marked and unmarked cars will be out looking for kerb-crawlers. Those who are caught could be sent on the one-day 'Change' course as an alternative to appearing in court.
PC Summerfield said: "It is about targeting the punters and hopefully educating them about the problems they can cause. If we see them with a girl, they will be arrested and offered the course. It has been very successful as only one or two who have been on it have been caught re-offending.
"The men generally don't want to go to court and have their details in the paper or their families knowing about what they have been doing. The first stage has been about talking to the girls, letting them know we are here to help and seeing if we can get them any support to deal with their issues and get off the streets.
"In the past, police have generally targeted the girls and locked them up, when really they are the ones that need the help. That isn't what we do anymore, it is about targeting the punters."
Police have also seen a rise in the number of complaints from residents in recent months.
"We have had children who have been looking out of their bedroom windows and can see these people having sex in cars," said PC Summerfield. "That isn't right and the residents are rightly fed up. They can hear the girls shouting asking for business and there are often discarded condoms around."
Women working on the streets have expressed support for police targeting their clients.
One girl, who did not wish to be named, said: "We are all vulnerable and desperate and will do anything for money. The men who come here and taking advantage of that and they are the ones who the police should be going after."
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