from www.walesonline.com – A brothel owner who used internet chatrooms and the prospect of modeling work to lure girls as young as 14 into prostitution made more than half a million pounds from his crimes, a court heard today.
Wayne Baker, 61, was ordered to pay the crown more than £135,000 after he exploited vulnerable girls and young women to make money from them as prostitutes and for his own sexual gratification.
Baker, of Ebbw Vale, Blaenau Gwent, south Wales, was jailed for 11 years in February after admitting 22 charges involving child prostitution and child pornography, keeping a brothel, assault causing actual bodily harm, supplying a controlled drug to another and making and taking indecent photographs of a child.
Baker made £529,275 from his illegal activities, a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Newport Crown Court heard today.
This included £117,420 from female escorts.
Judge David Morris ordered him to pay £135,874.74, the amount the prosecution and defence agreed was the current value of his seizable assets, which included several properties.
The court previously heard Baker lied about his age in teenage chatrooms on the internet to meet girls and had “quasi-legitimate” businesses, including one called Mayfair Models.
But his interest in girls also led him to make contact with them through the internet and lie about his age.
He ran a brothel from his home, where men paid to attend sex parties on the last Friday of every month, the court heard.
The house was known locally as “the brothel on the hill”, police said.
Customers paid £120 an hour for sex with the prostitutes Baker controlled.
In one year his escort operation turned over an estimated £80,000.
Sentencing Baker in February, Judge Morris said: “You are a man with an obsession with sex.
“More disturbingly, you are a man with a compunction to dominate women for sexual purposes and derive sexual pleasure from degrading and humiliating women sexually.”
He told Baker: “It is plain your purposes were two-fold – mainly to provide a supply of young girls to indulge in a number of sex acts with you to satisfy your own lust. Then prostitute them for money you would receive a commission from.”
He added: “I accept some of these girls were already sexually active and in some cases had already prostituted themselves with others.”
However, the judge said: “It is clear you schooled each girl in more extreme sexual practices.”
Today the judge told Baker if he failed to pay the money he would have to serve an additional three years in prison and would still have to pay the money after his release.
Afterwards, Detective Chief Inspector Bill Davies, of Gwent Police, said: “The result of today’s hearing shows that criminals can be made to pay for their crimes in a number of different ways.
“Wayne Baker is already serving a prison sentence and now he has had the assets he acquired as a result of his criminal activity taken away from him as well.
“This case sends a strong message out to offenders that we can and will make every effort to ensure you do not benefit in any way from the crimes you commit, even on your release from prison.”
Detective Sergeant Tony Bruten, of the Financial Crime Unit, said the money would be redistributed to frontline agencies including the police.
He added: “In 2008 to 2009 Gwent Police was given £313,000 back from the Home Office. This money, and the money received in the future, is reinvested in the fight against crime, including financial investigation work and community projects through the Local Criminal Justice Board.”