A HARD-hitting exposé by Brent Council has lifted the lid on the thriving sex industry embedded across communities in the borough.

A year-long probe by councillors found Brent has the second highest number of adverts for brothels in London, and it linked prostitution to organised crime, people trafficking and the exploitation of women.

A report produced this week shows women working in vice dens often need help for drug, alcohol and mental health problems, and urges that funds should be earmarked to help women who are leaving prostitution.

As many as 125 women in the sex trade are on drug or alcohol rehabilitation programmes, commonly for help with heroin or crack cocaine addictions.

The report also describes the cost of going to a brothel as “incredibly low”, indicating that the market in the borough has been saturated with brothels leaving the women with little control or choice in their lives.

While a series of proposals to tackle the problem have been put forward by the report, councillors and police are concerned they do not know the full magnitude of the brothel industry in Brent.

Figures from 2008 estimated between 54 and 64 brothels were in operation in the borough at any one time, but Detective Inspector Tracey Stevens, who heads up Brent Police sexual offences unit, conceded the figures could be much higher than that.

Calling for more awareness of the issues, she said: “It is what I would call a hidden crime – people are very reluctant to come forward and say what is going on and we are trying to raise awareness of the ways to contact us.

“We know some people from Eastern Europe can get trafficked into it, and also ladies from Asian and Oriental countries, and it can often be linked to organised crime.”

The report picks out Kingsbury, Sudbury and Wembley as brothel hotspots, and adds police raids have a limited effect on the industry because if one brothel is closed down, very often the business is very quickly set up elsewhere.

The Harrow Times followed the trail of classified adverts offering “massages” with “discretion assured” to houses and flats tucked away among respectable households in Kingsbury, Kenton, Wembley, Harrow town centre, and Queensbury.

When challenged about prostitution, the phone operator at one Wembley brothel claimed to not understanding English, and denied offering sex for money or even giving massages.

But in an earlier conversation with the same brothel, our reporter posing as a punter negotiated a £40 20-minute session with a woman, including oral sex, or £60 for half an hour with protected intercourse.

At another suspected brothel in Kingsbury, the operator described a blonde 22-year-old woman from Hungary who was working that day, and said punters negotiate the prices and activities with the woman themselves.

When challenged about the morality of the business, the operator said: “It's their own business what they do - it's their own life - what can I say? Everybody's responsible for their own life.”

With newspaper adverts identified as the most common way men solicit sex, the report called for publishers to stop running the classified or at least run a warning notice alongside highlighting the dangers of fueling the sex trade.

Newsquest, one of the UK's largest publishers of newspapers, and publisher of the Harrow Times, dropped all 'adult services' advertisements in 2008, the only local publisher to do so.

The move won widespread praise from local politicians, police and senior members of the clergy at the time.

Councillor Ann John, who chaired the council probe, said it was a “civic duty” to tackle the problem head-on.

While she conceded the problem cannot necessarily be solved, she added: “Too often society sees prostitution as something which will always be with us and which we can do nothing to tackle.

“I believe that attitude has led to widespread exploitation of some of our most vulnerable people, including children, the trafficking of fellow human beings and the violence which is endemic within the sex trade.”

Recommendations from the report include:

Raise awareness of the problem of prostitution

- Better train police how to deal with women affected

- Lobby Mayor of London for strategy for prostitution around the Olympics

- Call for newspapers to run deterrent advert next to adult services classifieds

- Encourage council workers to take down cards from phone booths

- Set up multi-agency group to continue working on the problem

- Channel funds to help women leaving prostitution

-Continue to gather evidence of prostitution in Brent

-When a brothel is identified, make sure action is taken

Anyone with information on prostitution or brothels can contact DI Stevens on 0208 733 4465.