'Multiple MSPs have paid women for sex', former sex worker claims

The Alba MSP told the Daily Record that the woman had come forward to her as she launched a member’s bill at Holyrood which, if passed, would criminalise those buying sex, while decriminalising those selling it.

Under the proposals, those convicted of buying sex could be fined up to £10,000 if the case was prosecuted in the sheriff courts – with these courts also able to impose jail sentences of up to six months.

However, Regan said the former sex worker’s MSPs claim casts doubt on who may have a “vested interest” in opposing the bill.

READ MORE: Ash Regan's bid to criminalise buying sex – what you need to know

She told the Daily Record: “We know that in Scotland about one man in ten will buy sex, so that would suggest to us that there is a likelihood that there would be MSPs that buy sex, and there would be people in the civil service that buy sex.

“It was confirmed to me today that there are current, serving MSPs – and that is plural, so not just one, but there are multiple – who are sex buyers.”

Regan said the former sex worker had seen the MSPs in question on television. Asked if she believed the woman, Regan replied: “Yes.”

Fiona Broadfoot, chief executive of Build A Girl UK – a “survivor-led social enterprise working with young women at risk of, or experiencing, sexual exploitation”, backed Regan’s bill.

She told the Record that, during her past experience as a sex worker, it had been “very ordinary” men who had paid for sex. 

(Image: Fiona Broadfoot) Broadfoot was asked if MSPs were likely to have paid for sex. She said: “Absolutely, 100%. It’s usually powerful men. It’s usually wealthy men.”

The charity boss, who described herself as a “sex trade survivor”, said: “I spent 11 years entrenched in the life.

“Every day I thought I would be murdered, every day I experienced rape, by ordinary men, ordinary men whose lives were not impacted for one second like the women and girls who were being used.

“I was criminalised, my perpetrators weren’t, none of the men who bought me, none of them who trafficked me about and profited from me.”

READ MORE: Deja vu as language is key to debate on prostitution or ‘sex work’

Regan’s Bill, which the MSP hopes will be passed before Holyrood breaks for next May’s Scottish Parliament election, would also quash historic convictions for prostitution and create a statutory right to support for leaving the trade.

The MSP said: “Between 6000 and 8000 women we think are involved in prostitution in Scotland, which is not an insignificant number.

“I don’t want to live in a country where you can order women like a pizza, with no consequences for the people that do it.

“We know that this is not a victimless crime, the damage that is perpetuated on to women who work in the sex trade is extreme and I don’t think any civilised society should be either looking away or condoning it with a legislative approach.”