Admitted Keeping Brothel

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30093, 29 March 1963, Page 12

Admitted Keeping Brothel

(N.Z. Press Association.) AUCKLAND, March 28. A man who ran a brothel in Blockhouse Bay, threatened to expose a 17-year-old girl to the police if she did not work for him, SeniorSergeant G. A. Dallow said in the Magistrate’s Court at Auckland today. Frederick Terrence Ellis, aged 33, a workman, pleaded guilty to running a brothel between October 11 last year and February 15. The police offered no evidence on four other charges and they were dismissed by Mr A. A. Coates, S.M. Ellis (Mr P. A. Williams) was convicted and remanded until April 3 for sentence. Senior-Sergeant Dallow said Ellis was the occupier of a house at Blockhouse Bay from August until his arrest about two weekt ago. For some time police suspected Ellis was running a brothel there. As a result many persons were interviewed.

“One 17-year-old girl said that she met Ellis about the beginning of September. She had previously worked for him at another address. He told her he was opening another house at Blockhouse Bay," said Senior-Sergeant Dallow.

“Apparently the police were looking for this girl and Ellis

threatened he would tell the police where she was if the girl did not go with him. She went with him, and at the house found another girl living and working there as a prostitute.” Ellis would ring up various ships and get men to com, out to the house. He would also ring tip girls and get them along to the house to cater for the men. “A 21-year-old girl refused to become a prostitute, but Ellis threatened to tell the police that she was on drugs. She still refused, but submitted when Ellis threatened to tell her fiance. “She worked for £5, of which Ellis would get £1 or £2. In the course of a fortnight. she entertained about 15 men in this manner." Another girl was intimidated into working there for two weeks because Ellis threatened to break up her engagement Senior-Sergeant Dallow said that another 17-year-old girl t ho lived in the house was under the impression that it was a boarding house. “ohe claimed Ellis threatened to put her out if she did not become a prostitute,” he said. Mi Williams said: “The evidence as outlined by the prosecutor mainly depends on what has been told to the

police by the prostitutes involved in this case. “I would submit that there is possibly no class of evidence which is more unreliable than that of young fe- . ales who are being questioned on matters pertaining to their honour.” Many of the women who carried out these practices were already “corrupted females” who worked hotels and bars for their trade, said Mr Williams. “It may have been that if these witnesses had been paraded before the Court and then cross-examined, they may not have made a particularly good showing.” This was not a case of a highly-organised business and Ellis had not earned more than £SC over the last six months, he said. The Magistrate prohibited the publication of the names of five women referred to in the case, and also prohibited publication of the street “at which this nefarious business was carried on.”