Street Offences Act 1959

1Loitering or soliciting for purposes of prostitution.

(1)It shall be an offence for a common prostitute to loiter or solicit in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution.

(2)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding ten pounds or, for an offence committed after a previous conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds or, for an offence committed after more than one previous conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds or imprisonment for a period not exceeding three months or both.

(3)A constable may arrest without warrant anyone he finds in a street or public place and suspects, with reasonable cause, to be committing an offence under this section.

(4)For the purposes of this section "street" includes any bridge, road, lane, footway, subway, square, court, alley or passage, whether a thoroughfare or not, which is for the time being open to the public; and the doorways and entrances of premises abutting on a street (as hereinbefore defined), and any ground adjoining and open to a street, shall be treated as forming part of the street.

(5)The following enactments shall cease to have effect, that is to say—

(a)paragraph 11 of section fifty-four of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839; and

(b)the paragraph beginning " Every common prostitute " in section twenty-eight of the Town Police Clauses Act, 1847, and any later Act in so far as it incorporates that paragraph; and

(c)paragraph 11 of section thirty-five of the City of London Police Act, 1839, and the paragraph beginning " Every common prostitute " in section one hundred and two of the Manchester Police Regulation Act, 1844;

but for the purposes of subsection (2) of this section a conviction of the offence mentioned in any of those paragraphs shall be taken into account as a previous conviction in the same way as a conviction of an offence under this section.