Brothel manager spared jail over East End bordello

A Bangladeshi brothel manager who ran a bordello from a third floor flat in London’s East End has been spared jail.

Mohammed Uddin, 46, was arrested with two Romanian sex workers after a series of complaints from disgusted neighbours in Stepney Green.

The brothel charged punters more than £30 for 15 minutes with a girl at the apartment occupied by 60-year old Mac Gustave in O’Leary Square.

Uddin admitted he was paid £10 a day for managing the brothel but Gustave was acquitted because of a lack of evidence.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard the brothel was raided on three separate occasions before Uddin was arrested in December last year.

Prosecutor Philippa Page said: ‘On all three occasions Mr Uddin was present and initially claimed to the police in interview in December that he was a customer as opposed to having anything to do with managing the brothel in question.

‘He has since admitted he was a day-to-day operative working on behalf of others or another on the premises.

‘His role was to facilitate the day-to-day running of the business and he did so by organising customers to come and visit the premises.’

Uddin let punters into the flat and supervised the services provided by the sex workers.

‘They would be charged £30 for 15 minutes,’ added Ms Page.

‘He would collect the money and out of that money he would pay the sex workers and the tenant of those premises.

‘The fact that a brothel was being operated out of a third floor flat had a negative effect on the community and it is of course the repeated complaints of other residents that prompted the police visits in the first place.’

Uddin, a former farmer in his native Bangladesh, speaks very little English and has no right to work in the UK.

‘He was offered the opportunity of doing this work for someone who organises a number of these establishments around east London,’ said his barrister Andrew Cohen.

‘He assures me he got very little money for what he did – some £10 per day.

‘The rest he had to give to the individual who was the organiser.’

Sentencing Uddin, Mr Recorder Sandeep Kainth said: ‘You took the cash from the clients.

‘You then gave the sex workers their money at the end of the day and gave the remaining amount to somebody else.

‘The mobile phone number that was being utilised for the purposes of obtaining clients was a telephone that you operated.

‘You provided refreshments to those who were awaiting the services they had paid for.

‘Whether services were being provided covertly or overtly – the fact that services were being provided in a residential area clearly could not have been pleasant for residents.’

Uddin, of (51) Swedenborg Gardens, Wapping, east London, was sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment suspended for one year with a rehabilitation activity requirement for 30 days.

He must also pay an £80 surcharge.