>And the criminalisation of prostitution isn't a grey area, it's the law in that jurisdiction.
No. Prostitution per se is not against the law in the UK (except in Northern Ireland).
No. Prostitution per se is not against the law in the UK (except in Northern Ireland).
As for the rest, that's why the OP said "grey area". It's not entirely clear that they were doing any of the other stuff.
See e.g. the 'legality' section in the following Wikipedia article. It's not black and white whether or not anything illegal was going on.
It's not a grey area at all. And paying for prostitutes is illegal full stop in NI and Ireland, and is illegal in the case that they have a pimp in Great Britain
We have no way of knowing that the prostitutes engaged in soliciting. “Soliciting” doesn’t just mean “finding someone to pay you for sex”, it has a specific meaning to do with advertising for sex in a public place. If the prostitutes met their clients by, e.g., chatting to guys online, then that would not count as soliciting.
Similarly, we have no way of knowing that more that more than one woman actually had sex on the premises, or that the prostitutes have a pimp.
So this is at worst a grey area in terms of legality. And it’s effectively straight-up legal, given that the police have made no attempt for decades to target this kind of prostitution via laws against pimping/soliciting/whatever, since it’s impossible for them to construct a prosecutable case.
And again, it IS illegal to pay prostitutes in the entire UK under certain circumstances (they have a pimp, they were trafficked, they're under duress).
He said there were two prostitutes listed as guests, and that they advertised their services and rates online, which can be classed as solicitation.
>He said there were two prostitutes listed as guests, and that they advertised their services and rates online, which can be classed as solicitation.
You have a kind of genius for spreading inaccurate information. Advertising yourself as a prostitute online is not illegal in Britain and is not classed as solicitation.
To prove that a crime was committed, the police would have to show, at minimum, that both of the women actually had sex with a client in the same property. That is obviously not going to be possible.
So you did, apologies