"Common prostitute" is a term used in English law related to prostitution. The term was first used in the

Vagrancy Act 1824 The Vagrancy Act 1824 (5 Geo. 4. c. 83) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that makes it an offence to sleep rough or beg in England and Wales. It is still mostly in force and enforceable. Critics, including William Wilberforce, c ...

. The term continued to be used in the

Street Offences Act 1959 The Street Offences Act 1959 (7 & 8 Eliz 2 c 57) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning street prostitution. It was passed following the publication of the Wolfenden report which discussed the rise in street prostitution a ...

which maintained the illegality of street prostitution. Section 1 stated: "It shall be an offence for a common prostitute to

loiter Loitering is the act of remaining in a particular public place for a prolonged amount of time without any apparent purpose. While the laws regarding loitering have been challenged and changed over time, loitering is still illegal in various j ...

or solicit in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution." The case of ''Director of Public Prosecutions v Bull''

994 Year 994 ( CMXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * September 15 – Battle of the Orontes: Fatimid forces, under Turkish gener ...

158 J.P. 1005 determined that the term could only be applied to female, and not male, prostitutes. The term was widely regarded as archaic, stigmatising, and offensive, and a number of failed attempts had been made since the 1920s to enact new legislation which would replace the wording with a solicitation law that applied to both sexes equally, and did not create an offence that could only be committed by a special class of person. In 2007 the government announced that it would introduce new legislation which would eliminate the use of the term, and replace it with new language which would apply equally to males and females
Section 16
of the

Policing and Crime Act 2009 The Policing and Crime Act 2009 (c 26) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act makes provision about police reform, prostitution, sex offenders, sex establishments and certain other premises. It amends the law on aviation sec ...

amended s.1(1) of the Street Offences Act 1959 to replace the term "common prostitute" with "person". The Policing and Crime Act 2009 also introduced tough new measures aimed at men seeking women for the purpose of prostitution. In particular the act makes it an offence for someone to pay or promise to pay a prostitute who has been subject to ‘exploitive conduct’.Prostitution loitering paying or soliciting a prostitute subjected to force
The change made the customer an equal offender with the street prostitute.

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* * * {{cite web , url = https://www.theguardian.com/crime/article/0,,2112250,00.html , title = Justice reforms focus on prostitution and jail numbers , author = Alan Travis , date = 2007-06-27 , work = The Guardian , accessdate = 2007-11-25 , ref=none Prostitution Prostitution in the United Kingdom

See also

References

External links