FEAR gripped Liverpool's prostitutes last night as news of the double murder spread across the city.
Councillors have already called for special zones to be set up to protect the city's street girls, and last night one councillor called for urgent action to ensure their safety.
Liberal councillor Steve Radford proposed a motion at Liverpool's last council meeting calling for a look at licensed brothels.
Last night, he told the Daily Post: "While we don't know the circumstances of this tragic case, it highlights the dangers associated with the trade and why we need to look at ways of managing it.
"It would be a tragedy if something like this had to happen again before people have the courage to tackle the issue."
The city council is preparing a report to look at whether so-called tolerance zones, where prostitutes could trade more safely, should be set up in industrial areas of the city.
Under a "traffic light" system, green zones would be designated as areas where prostitutes could work freely, but in red zones police would operate a zero tolerance policy on kerb-crawling.
Around six possible sites would be under consideration, should the council back the controversial plan.
Under UK law, paying for sex is not illegal but soliciting sex, benefiting from any payments for sex and managing a brothel are all against the law.
Labour opposition leader Joe Anderson said: "This dramatically brings home the issues we have raised in the past at council.
"No more than three years ago, we had a prostitute savagely murdered in that area.
"We have learned nothing from that.
" I am going to insist that we do something to act on this issue. Just because we have a moral opposition to prostitution, it does not mean that we should do nothing about the safety of prostitutes."
News RSS Feed