Just two east Kent hotels refused to rent a room to two unaccompanied girls aged 14 and 15 during a test purchase operation by Kent Police community officers.
On June 22-23 officers were assisted by Kent Police Cadets in a test purchase operation to ensure that local hotels and bed and breakfast operators were not selling rooms to those aged under 18.
The two Kent Police cadets visited 12 business asking for a room. Out of those visited, only two venues refused a room to the girls.
The operation was overseen by Police Community Support Officer Mark Ball who said: “The action was not about calling-out businesses but ensuring they understand that we all have a responsibility to safeguard young people. Those challenging room requests from underaged children could be preventing them from coming to serious harm.
“I was particularly impressed with one venue who not only refused to sell a room to our test purchasers but also began the process of calling the police because they were concerned for their welfare.
“Those who failed by selling a room were given advice around their responsibilities as a hotelier and warned of the dangers of child exploitation, trafficking and the risks posed by county line gangs.”
Same again please, but this time girls accompanied by men.
I failed to see the logic of this at all. Surely in the main it will be a adult/man booking a room to take advantage of a girl. Refusing a room to a 15 year old girl could do more harm than good. They could have escaped the harm of an abuser and just seeking refuge for the night. We know the system time and time again fails young girls and does not protect them. I fail to see how making sure young unaccompanied females from renting a room will crack the abuse our youngest most vulnerable females suffer?!? Surely monitoring and not allowing adult male visitors would be far more sensible. Turfing young at risk females on the streets seems a stupid yet very British solution to the problem.
Like the above I would like to see hotels checking who is visiting room.
This seems like a nonsense PR stunt by a police force with clearly too much time on their hands.
I fail to see this will do any good and once again their focus seems to be in all the wrong areas.
Some people can’t see past the end of their nose when in plain sight the hidden is occurring right in front of them
I reported to police the conversation I overheard between a woman and a young girl on a train in London. It turned out the woman was taking the girl aged 13 to her first client in an hotel.