Long-term jail for brothel pair

THE FINAL two women involved in the sex slave ring uncovered in a city brothel have been jailed for a total of nine and a half years.

Jarawee Faknak and Mee Wong appeared at Plymouth Crown Court yesterday after pleading guilty last year.

Wong, aged 41, faced two charges of running a brothel – one in Gascoyne Place, St Judes and another in Taunton.

Faknak was charged with two counts of trafficking a woman inside the UK for sexual exploitation.

Earlier this month, six people from Thailand and Malaysia were locked up for a total of 17-and-a-half years for their part in the global prostitution and trafficking network.

It followed an complex investigation by officers from Devon and Cornwall Constabulary’s Serious Organised Crime Investigation Team.

The court was reminded how Faknak bought the trafficked woman for £10,000, telling her she would have to gross around £60,000 working as a prostitute, paying half to her new owner and half to brothel bosses.

Faknak, aged 41, sent the 29-year-old victim first to Chesterfield, where she worked for a Thai man, Yu Ming Lee, who owned several brothels before she was forwarded on to an Aberdeen brothel, servicing up to 15 men a day and enduring ‘more extreme’ sex acts.

The victim – a mother of two – escaped but was conned by another man, Vithool Gomart, who handed her over to Wong and her daughter Grace Lim to work in the Plymouth brothel.

Faknak’s barrister Peter Asteris claimed she was unaware the woman had been coerced, a line of mitigation Judge Francis Gilbert QC said he found impossible to accept.

Wong’s barrister John Femi-Ola explained Wong had set up the brothel so she could “better the life of her daughter”, who she brought into the business.

In sentencing, Judge Gilbert said Faknak knew the victim was an illegal immigrant and was “vulnerable to exploitation”, which Faknak had done “in the most despicable way”.

He jailed her for six years on each count, to run concurrently, with 334 days already spent in custody to count towards sentence.

Judge Gilbert noted Wong had admitted to the probation service that she was profiting by around £1,000 a week from her two brothels.

He said the victim was “in effect a prisoner” who was “compelled” to provide sex for Wong’s financial benefit. He then sentenced Wong – who gave birth last August to a baby girl – to three and a half years for running the Plymouth brothel and two years concurrently for the Taunton brothel, with 27 days on remand to count.