'Council worker's park encounter with prostitute'
nlnews@archant.co.uk
30 October 2008
A MAN who appeared to be an Islington Council worker brazenly chatted up a prostitute in his van at 8.45am - then followed her into a park, it was said this week.
The employee, who was wearing the distinctive green Islington Council overalls at the time, left his colleague reading in the van.
The scene was played out last Friday in front of a horrified grandmother who was waiting at a bus stop opposite Caledonian Park, in Market Road, Holloway - Islington's main prostitution hotspot.
Speaking exclusively to the Gazette, the 55-year-old, who lives in Penfields House, on the York Way Estate, but asked not to be named, said: "I honestly could not believe what I was seeing.
"I was standing next to the football pitches waiting to get the 274 bus to Camden Town when this Islington Council van pulled up with two men inside. It had the logo on the side and one of those lifting devices for fixing lampposts on the back.
"One of the prostitutes that's always around here walked past and they beeped the horn at her. She came back and started chatting to them through the passenger window. She then walked off into the park and the driver got out and followed her a couple of feet behind.
"It was obvious what they were up to but he didn't look shifty or embarrassed. He was a young, clean-looking white guy in his 20s and he had the green council overalls on. The poor girl was dirty, had bruises all over her legs and she was staggering, but even though he saw me at the bus stop he didn't seem to care at all."
By the time the bus arrived five minutes later the man and the woman had still not reappeared from the park, leaving the witness, whose children and grandchildren, have grown up in the area, outraged.
"It's disgusting," she said. "The council is supposed to be helping clear this problem up not adding to it. The young girls on the estate get people like this asking them for business all the time.
"I've seen lots of company vans kerb-crawling but you don't expect it from the council - especially first thing in the morning."
Councillor John Gilbert, Islington Council's executive member for human resources, said: "We take any complaint about a council employee very seriously.
"But this is the first we've heard of this allegation. No-one has reported anything to us directly. Of course, we are now investigating it and I urge anyone who saw anything to get in touch.
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