Charlie Daniels went from being a teenage street prostitute to one of the country's most successful madams, running one of the biggest brothels in Bradford for ten years. EMMA CLAYTON talks to her about the changing face of prostitution.

Charlie Daniels became a prostitute when she was a 17-year-old single mother.

Aged 19 she was working in a sauna and at 21 she started her own escort agency. By her mid-twenties Charlie was earning thousands from rich clients and went on to run brothels across the North of England. Among them was Pussycats in Bradford which she ran until quitting the business four years ago.

Today Charlie, 36, works with various agencies encouraging strategies supporting prostitutes. She's a media commentator on adult issues and women in prison (she went to prison for stabbing another prostitute while defending herself during an attack) and contributor to the government's sex industry paper Paying the Price.

Now she has written a book, Priceless, about her life in the industry over the past 20 years.

Times have changed since Charlie, from Sheffield, started walking the streets. The rise of the internet and mobile phones have given prostitutes more independence and anonymity, allowing them to work on their own terms. A broader range of women are going into prostitution, including professional women and students boosting incomes or clearing debts.

"It can be very lucrative I've known high-class whores who earn more in one night than nurses earns in a month and in a materialistic society people want fast cash," says Charlie. "However the idea that someone would go into prostitution to buy luxuries is inconceivable to me. I started through desperation.

"What sets me apart is that I went from one end of the industry to the other, I've seen how it all works," she adds. "I started as a street girl and became a high-class escort but it was hard making that transition. On the streets you're cold and clinical but as an escort you take on whatever role the client pays for, which usually involves affection."

Surprisingly, for someone who ran a string of successful brothels, Charlie is against legalising brothels.

"While I defend the right of any woman over the age of 18 to be a prostitute, I'd never encourage prostitution and I wouldn't want my daughter doing it. It's not a healthy option and I don't ask society to suddenly find it morally acceptable that's a move too far the other way.

"When I ran brothels I encouraged women to make their time in the industry as short as possible and save as much money as they could. There's a danger that legalising brothels would glamorise prostitution.

"However we have to accept that prostitution exists. If we push vice any further underground more problems are created. If run properly, saunas/massage parlours provide a safe, healthy environment for women to work in. As long as parlours are registered, have open communication with the vice squad and are checked by an outside agency who can report back to police, they should continue as they are.

"No government will ever legalise brothels because governments promote family values. But, while prostitution is never going to be morally acceptable, it's always going to exist. The government has to accept that and ensure that it's not driven underground.

"When I ran brothels I looked after my girls, they felt safe. It was a victimless situation."

It is street prostitution, where women are vulnerable to violence and health risks, that Charlie wants eradicated. She says proposed tolerance zones, which would see prostitutes working in managed areas with regular health checks, are not the answer.

"Street prostitution is the cancer of prostitution," she says. As someone who was raped, beaten and kidnapped while working the streets, she should know. "You have to ask why a man chooses to go kerb-crawling when there are prostitutes working independently, from private flats and as escorts. What sinister motive does he have for seeking street-walkers? Tolerance zones give out the message that this is acceptable.

"There should be zero tolerance on the streets, starting with clients. There should be longer sentences for kerb-crawling. If there were no clients on the streets there'd be no need for street girls.

"People think if brothels were legalised there'd be no more street-walkers. That's not the case," adds Charlie. "There are girls who don't want to work in brothels, but they can use private flats instead. The industry is changing. Today there are prostitutes working in parlours and flats as well as escorts and the more upmarket end, where you can earn £10,000 a time. Mobile phones give women more control."

Charlie says that although the sex industry is changing there's still a long way to go with public attitudes.

"Prostitution is still seen as seedy. A lot of people assume most prostitutes work the streets. TV programme-makers are helping to change the image by highlighting other areas of the industry. Some recent programmes showed the more exotic side, like high-class escorts earning vast sums of cash.

"Band of Gold (Kay Mellor's 1995 drama about prostitutes working the Lane' in Bradford) was brilliant but some people watch such dramas, see the seedier side and assume that all prostitution is like that."

The internet has expanded services within the sex industry. Unfortunately this also includes areas like child prostitution. "The internet brings together niches of people who may not normally communicate with each other," says Charlie. "Thankfully, internet policing is making strides."

While many prostitutes are becoming more independent, pimping remains an issue. The link between drugs and prostitution often starts with pimps grooming girls.

"Heroin is a huge problem," says Charlie. "Thankfully I never went down the drugs route, I saw what it did to girls on the street and in prison. Heroin crushes the human spirit.

"Trafficking is rife. Girls are brought over illegally from places like Eastern Europe and controlled by organised gangs. I have a problem with the word rescue when the police spring trafficked women from brothels because what happens to them after that?

"They end up sent back to a country they were desperate to leave or back with gangs. You always get a criminal element in immigrant communities, as with any other community. Anyone living in dire poverty does what they have to do to get by. But if the government was more selective about vetting people coming into the country this could be avoided."

"Police attitudes are changing though, they're becoming more victim-focussed."

l Priceless: My Journey Through a Life of Vice by Charlie Daniels is published by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £12.99. For more information about Charlie visit www.misscharliedaniels. com. Anyone wishing to make a donation to Genesis, an organisation supported by Charlie that helps sex workers in the region, is asked to ring (0113) 243 0036.