Raid

[Zander]

Four women have been fined €200 each after being arrested in a brothel on Galway over the weekend.

At a special sitting of Galway District Court this afternoon, gardaí outlined how they believed the four had been trafficked into Ireland by a criminal gang.

The women - aged 21, 22, 23 and 30 - are all originally from Romania. They denied they were working for pimps and instead claimed they were acting alone to raise money for their families.

They were arrested at 15 An Larnach, Bohermore, Galway, on Saturday night and immediately admitted to operating a brothel at that address.

The arrests were made an hour after gardaí quizzed a man leaving the apartment who said he had just paid for sexual favours.

The court heard the women were being charged €700 a week to rent the apartment, a short distance from the city centre.

Detective Sergeant Willie Byrne said gardaí had been carrying out surveillance on the apartment over the last number of weeks.

Det. Byrne gave evidence gardaí did not know how long the young women were in Ireland but they had been in Mayo last week and after spending a week in Galway, it was their intention to go to Wexford next week.

In reply to Judge Gerard Furlong, Det. Byrne said he didn’t believe the women when they told him they worked alone. He told the Judge it was his belief the women were "under the control of Dublin or Belfast-based pimps."

Gardaí confiscated €5,000 cash from the girls.

Ruling the girls were being used by others not before the court, Judge Furlong convicted and fined each of them €200 and asked the gardaí to put them in contact with the relevant organisations who would help them.

wil they have to appear back in court then or is that it

[Hunter Green]

Four Romanian women working a tour from Mayo to Galway to Wexford and operating a brothel at the time of arrest. It's almost a certainty they were trafficked and pimped. The only question is whether or not they were coerced. There's a good chance they were willingly complicit.

[FetishCherry]

Guess if they where trafficked and have a pimp they would not have in their pockets 5000 euro IN another hand 4 women working from same place asking for trouble. Imagine how many clients everyday come in and out ...to much traffic on the door , attract attention to neighbors..they call Garda and the rest we know... Plus by the law 2 girls already sharing is a brothel...

[Hunter Green]

As, are most girls - who work for someone.

Yes that's what I said

[Stonie]

I think they were very lucky girls here and the judge could see the full picture based on the evidence at hand.
It seems the Gardai had this place under Surveillance for quite a while
If they had true evidence pointing to brothel running of their own accord a stretch in the women's prison could have been on the cards

[Hunter Green]

Perhaps one of the usual heroes could organize a goodbye thread for them, and get busy working on a welcome back thread too.

[Zander]

My friend's house was robbed 3 weeks ago, got away with jewelry worth 3k and 1600 in cash, neighbour lost a quad bike worth 6 grand, old people beat up and robbed elsewhere so while the guards are sitting comfortably outside escort premises while the real criminals are given the green light, its good to see they got their priorities right now with a shortage of guards and all

[The Libertarian]

Were The Immigrant Council of Ireland or Ruhama in court to support these foreign ladies who were apparently 'trafficked' into the country?

Re Don't visit brothels and stick to indies, how can you recognize a brothel as two ladies working from the same premises is one legally, but how do you know there's more than 1 sex worker on any premises being used for business. OK established escorts almost ceertainly work alone, but apart from that, how can you know?

RE the guards can't make deals with anyone! May be not officially, but they will do virtually anything to nail who they want to nail and that includes leaning on suspects stc.

I suspect when the new law comes in and it will the focus of their bollock acting will change to the client and they will lean/ make deals on sex workers to fuck clients up! Many will not rat us out, some will!

[Curvaceous Kate]

But they're not blaming the pimp or saying they were forced into it, that is the key point here,pimp is out of the picture completely, they say they are doing it to feed their families and running the business themselves and in saying so are committing an offence (running a brothel) so no option here in the eyes of the law (no matter how crazy it is) but to hand down a fine, as I say its procedure but they wont really have to pay it.
You could see further pressure put on these girls too as not only deportation looms anyway but a stint in prison too if they don't play ball

Yes they said that but the court did not believe them and said that they were trafficked. Either they believe them or they don't. You can't have it both ways.

[Stonie]

yes they said that but the court did not believe them and said that they were trafficked. Either they believe them or they don't. You can't have it both ways.

clearly on the evidence put forward and the sentence handed out, they didn’t believe the escorts