"Common prostitute" is a term used in

English law English law is the common law list of national legal systems, legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly English criminal law, criminal law and Civil law (common law), civil law, each branch having its own Courts of England and Wales, ...

related to

prostitution Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, no ...

. The term was first used in the

Vagrancy Act 1824 The Vagrancy Act 1824 ( 5 Geo. 4. c. 83) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that makes it an offence to sleep rough or beg in England and Wales. The legislation was passed in Georgian England to combat the increasing number o ...

. 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 The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and ma ...

which maintained the illegality of

street prostitution Street prostitution is a form of prostitution in which a prostitute solicitation, solicits customers from a public place, most commonly a street, while waiting at street corners or walking alongside a street, but also other public places such as ...

. Section 1 stated: "It shall be an offence for a common prostitute to loiter or solicit in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution." The case of ''Director of Public Prosecutions v Bull'' 994158 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 Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act makes provision about police reform, prostitution, sex offenders, sex establishments and certain other p ...

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

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