Husband and wife who ran brothel jailed for sex trafficking

Couple’s treatment of sex workers amounts to modern slavery, say police

Couple rented flat to host trafficking victims for sex work (SWNS)

A couple who ran a brothel from their flat have been jailed for running an international sex trafficking and prostitution racket.

Fabiana De Souza, 42, and her husband Gareth Derby, 53, brought sex workers to the UK from Europe and South America and sent them to brothels.

Police said their sexual exploitation of seven vulnerable women amounted to modern day slavery. The pair treated the women like “commodities” and made £40,000 from them in six months, a court heard.

De Souza, who herself provided dominatrix services in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, was said to be the ringleader.

A hearing at Leeds Crown Court heard that she and Derby, who earned around £50,000 a year as an engineer and machine specialist, paid for sex workers to be flown in from Brazil and Portugal before sending them to brothels.

The pair, who ran the racket from their home in Norfolk, were arrested in August 2018 and charged with human trafficking and controlling prostitution for financial gain.

They each denied the charges but a jury found them guilty on both counts following a two week trial in December.

Both were jailed for five years when they appeared for sentencing on Monday.

Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley QC said De Souza rented a two-bed flat in Harrogate to use for the sex trade.

She and Derby also converted the garage at their then-home in Norfolk on Springfield Road, Walpole St Andrew, into a prostitution den in which a trafficked woman worked.

Converted garage in couple’s Norfolk home which was used for sex trade (North Yorkshire Police/SWNS)

Police found bundles of cash at this address, along with notebooks describing the process of their trade.

The couple paid to advertise the Harrogate property in listings on the classified escort websites Viva Street and Adult Work which included descriptions of the women.

They took bookings and arranged appointments for clients who would pay from £80 for half an hour to more than £1,000 for an overnight stay.

Between May 2017 and August 2018, £38,000 in cash was deposited into De Souza’s bank accounts at branches in Harrogate and Norfolk.

About £9,000 of this was sent to accounts in Brazil and Portugal.

Following her arrest, De Souza told police she rented the flat in Harrogate for over £700 a month and let rooms to people including “friends" from Portugal, her home country.

Derby said only that he had an “inkling that Fabia worked at the Harrogate flat as a dominatrix”. But in a text sent to a friend in January 2018, he boasted of being a “smuggler of women”, the court heard.

The pair were caught after a police investigation in which an undercover officer posed as a client to make appointments at the Harrogate brothel.

Defending De Souza, Michael Fullerton said she was from a very deprived background and had worked in the sex trade from a very young age.

She had worked in Brazil and then Portugal, at some point as a stripper, before arriving in the UK.

Judge Guy Kearl QC, the Recorder of Leeds, told the couple: “You were not only partners in marriage, but partners in business.

“This was a properly organised, contrived, criminal business. This was a joint enterprise between the both of you [and] you are each equally culpable.

“You treated these women like commodities to increase your finances.”

Additional reporting by SWNS