Sex for Sale: How horrific murder of well-known prostitute spelled end for Glasgow's red light district

Daily Record

a day ago

The Daily Record tells how one campaigning former police chief helped make life safer for vulnerable women' sex workers.
Just over a decade ago sex was sold quite openly on the streets of Scotland.
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Young women - usually heroin addicts - would gather at night to sell their bodies, usually to feed their habit and often that of a partner. In recent years sex work has moved online with women advertising their services from flats, hotel rooms and even AirBnb.
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However until recently hundreds of women across Scotland could be seen at night standing on street corners or litter strewn doorways seeking out the custom of their punters. Every city Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee had their own distinctive red light districts.
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The biggest was in Glasgow - known as The Drag - which attracted customers from all over the West of Scotland and often further afield. It was situated close to the city's financial district and ran from Blythswood Square down to Cadogan Street and then on to Argyle Street.
As financiers and office workers poured out on to the streets at the end of the day they would be replaced by a different kind of workforce. Hundreds of tragic women looking for business from their customers - often well heeled professional men who would cruise about in their BMW's and Mercedes looking for the girl of their choice.
From 6pm until the early hours of the morning the women would ply their hellish trade. At one stage it was estimated that 850 women worked in The Drag of which 85 percent were heroin addicts. It was a grim and dangerous way of life in more ways than one.
Between 1991 and 2005 seven sex workers operating on the Drag. Diane McInally, Karen McGregor, Leona McGovern, Jackie Gallagher, Tracy Wylde, Margo Lafferty and Emma Caldwell were murdered. All had one thing in common. They were vulnerable young women forced to sell their bodies to feed their habit.
Former Detective Chief Inspector Nanette Pollock was the offficer in charge of the investigation into the murder of Margo Lafferty ty and says that was a 'game changer' in the way that the authorities including the police treated sex workers. Margo's naked body was found in a lane off West Regent Street in Glasgow city-centre in February1998 after she had been strangled.
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In October that year 19 year old Brian Donnelly from Old Drumchapel, Glasgow, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life. However he was granted a retrial in 2021 - after a jury ruled that the original jury had been misdirected - but was then found guilty for a second time.
Nanette Pollock was able to use Margo's murder to move women off the streets and make their lives better. A working group Roots Out of Prostitution was set up for that purpose. Nanette, now retired, told the Daily Record:"In 1990 heroin hit the streets of Glasgow and the whole thing changed. The women were in the town to make some money and feed their habits.
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"They were then falling victim to violence from their punters and no one seemed to care. "I said that our attitude had to change towards those women. Margo Lafferty's murder was the catalyst for change. "What came out of that was Roots Out Of Prostitution. "We had to set up an exit route for these poor women to a better life. "I remember taking the women to a nearby hotel and telling them what was happenning. "That was when things finally started to improve."
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Nanette says Margos' murder was the beginning of the end for the Drag particularly with the conviction of Brian Donnelly later that year. She added:"It woke up younger women to the dangers of prostitution and working on the streets.
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"It also let the punters see that we were on the women's side. "After Margo's murder a lot of the men did not come back to The Drag. "It was also the first time we had got a conviction and showed we were serious about tackling the violence and making the women's lives better.
"Until then I think people thought we were not taking the problem seriously. "We couldn't condone what they did but we were not condemning it either. "For the first time we were trying to help them."
Nanette says Margos's murder was the one that struck most fear into the other sex workers. She added:"She had been on the streets since she was 18. "Margo was scared of nobody. "Any other women on the streets that were having problem spoke to Margo and Margo faced up to their punters.
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"In many ways they were mentored and looked after by Margo. "When she was murdered they got a helluva shock. "They thought if Margo can get murdered then anyone can. "They now saw it was just so dangerous."
As part of Roots Out Of Prostitution the women were for the first time given access to benefits, health services and housing which also enabled them to get them away from abusive and controlling partners. Nanette added:"We built up their trust and the women began to see that we could solve their problems and the numbers using The Drag dropped."
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The former police chief is glad to see that women no longer have to sell their bodies on the street to survive. She accepts that working from home or flats as many sex workers now do is much safer for them. However Nanette added:"We shouldn't condone prostitution and we don't want that to happen."
A bill introduced in 2007 by the Scottish Government made kerb crawling illegal, further reduced the sex traffic in The Drag. The new legislation made an offence of "loitering" in a car, with maximum fines of £1000 and the risk of punters having their cars confiscated.
In the last 27 years street prostitution has drastically reduced in Glasgow thanks to Nan's groundbreaking initiative. She added:"I was coming down from the West End one night recently and decided to drive through the town and there was nothing. "There wasn't even one woman standing about and I thought, Hurrah. "If you had told me that 30 years ago I would not have believed you."