Source: Newcastle Herald. They told the Newcastle Herald kerb crawling was on the increase and that police had reported 60 matters in relation to street walkers in the six months to January. The Herald spoke with a street-based sex worker known as Shelly, who said there was a stable of about 10 girls who regularly picked up customers along Maitland Road. An increase in the availability and use of heroin in Newcastle has coincided with the apparent rise in street sex workers.
Islington Village Community Group spokesman Terry McCauley said prostitutes, and their pimps, again viewed Islington as the place to ply their trade. The Herald has spoken with more than 10 store owners and residents who told of increased activity along Maitland Road and surrounding streets.
On one occasion last week two girls worked the corner of Maitland and Coal streets at 7am, while young children walked to school just a few metres away. But in the past 10 years Islington has reinvented itself with trendy cafes, vintage clothing stores and a booming multicultural population. But with the three-year funding trial running its course and the problem seemingly sorted, only a part-time case worker has been available in the suburb since late Wallsend MP and Shadow Minister for the Hunter Sonia Hornery raised the issue in state parliament this month, claiming sex workers were slowly trickling back to the suburb.
ONCE a hairdresser, loving mother and wife, Shelly not her real name now spends her time pacing Maitland Road at Islington as a street-based sex worker. Shelly said she started working in a brothel a few years ago after the death of her partner led her to start using heroin. Or they hand you the money and try and take it off you and stuff like that.
I have my regulars; most of mine are over 40 or 50 years old. I rent my own place but I just made a few bad decisions. Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer. But Shelly said working on the street did have its disadvantages.
