I was sex worker in UK vice hotspot… notorious teen rapist nearly killed me and I had sex with friend’s dad for drugs

TO meet businesswoman Joanna Warner now, you’d have no idea the horrors the 43-year-old previously suffered in her former life as a sex worker. Before turning her life around in 2019, mum Joanna endured 13 years working ‘the beat’ in one of the UK’s most dangerous, pimp-controlled red light districts, where she had sex with up to eight men a night, who paid £20 for sex – and was even nearly killed by sadistic teen rapist Lee Nield. Joanna Warner spent 13 years working as a prostitute in Blackburn’s deadly red light district Credit: Peter Powell She was nearly killed by rapist Lee Nield, who was later found to have attacked teenage girls Credit: Unknown Her traumatic past is a long way away from her life now, running her own successful doggy day care company, after going to rehab in 2018. Thankfully, Joanna has now been clean from drugs and sober for seven years. Recalling her time as a former sex worker, Joanna, who still suffers nightmares, says: “The beat was very dangerous, it’s still going today. Unfortunately the red light district attracts a lot of predators, and I suffered a lot of assaults. “’I’ve had a knife held to my throat, was nearly strangled to death and was robbed by punters for all my money. “There are a lot of evil, psychotic and dangerous men who were out in those areas looking for vulnerable women to use for sex, and to attack.” Joanna had a difficult start to life. Her dad, an alcoholic, was regularly kicked out of their family home. He would take her shoplifting and would easily nab £140 worth of items in a single day. Before her 15th birthday, Joanna was already smoking weed and taking magic mushrooms, ecstasy and valium. She believes an older drug dealer friend sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious. Two years later, Joanna tried heroin and crack for the first time at 17, following her father’s death. Soon it dominated her life after a few years, she felt she had no other option than to sell her body to buy drugs after being caught shoplifting countless times. Joanna was 22 and incredibly vulnerable when she started working ‘the beat’ in Blackburn’s unofficial red light district. She hardly remembers her first night as a sex worker apart from the “embarrassment and shame”, being intoxicated and not wanting anyone she knew to see her. Part of a nine-strong throng of women, including a mother and daughter, Joanna would work from 4pm until midnight each day in order to pay for the drugs and alcohol to numb her pain. At times she would get into a van to discover up to five men, all expecting sex, ready to degrade and insult her. “In the van, they were rough and nasty,” she says. “They tried to belittle and humiliate you. “They would laugh, watch and yell things like ‘dirty b***h’. I was so desperate for money that I’d do it. My thought was, the quicker I’m off ‘the beat’, the quicker I can score. “I would be taken to bedsits and go room-to-room. There was a mattress on the floor. People there were the poorest of the poor, or addicts.” Joanna, who now runs Joanna & Vinnie’s Canine Crew, which she says helps her to deal with and process her PTSD, would see up to eight men a night, with ‘business’ taking place on industrial units, windy roads, lay-bys, in bushes and sometimes near family homes. Punters “didn’t care less” about the sex workers’ clear vulnerabilities and some would taunt, humiliate and physically abuse them. One famed for paying £100 would pull up to lure a woman over, drive off a short distance, stop and repeat it multiple times, for the thrill of watching them desperately chase him. “He was getting off on it,” Joanna says. “Then he started driving around waving wads of money in his hand, laughing. Other people would throw p*** at us.” Prior to escaping the murky sex trade in 2018, Joanna had been jailed nine times for an array of criminal offences, including for public disorder, shoplifting and loitering for the purposes of prostitution. Joanna, pictured here high, used sex work to fund her addictions to heroin and crack cocaine Credit: supplied She saw up to eight men in a night and sometimes worked from 4pm until midnight Credit: supplied Joanna considered working in a brothel but “didn’t want to have to put on a performance” so stuck to the red light district. She adds: “There was no kissing, no getting your breasts out, just pull your pants down and then telling them to hurry up after a few minutes. But it was more dangerous. “It was all pretty seedy. I used to even do business with my friend’s dad, who I used drugs with. She would bring me round to him for sex.” There were a number of terrifying incidents. Once a burly man refused to pay, took out his genitals and forcibly walked towards her. Joanna continues: “I tried to run but he dragged me back by my hair. He was a big, strong guy. He started beating me really badly.” Luckily, men nearby heard her screams. Once they arrived, in a false defence often claimed by punters, the attacker said Joanna was trying to rob him. “There was one guy, a psychotic alcoholic, who held a knife to my throat and stomach once, I thought he was going to kill me,” she says. “I suffered a lot of assaults. I didn’t report them because the police would often tell you, ‘F*** off’ and threaten to arrest you. One psychotic PCSO used to scream ‘prostitute’ at us.” Then there was the attack from Neild, who in 2008 was jailed indefinitely after raping a 16-year-old girl and attacks on two other teens, including one aged just 15. Joanna became addicted to drugs as a teenager and by 22 was selling sex Credit: SWNS She has found calmness through her doggy daycare company Joanna & Vinnie’s Canine Crew Credit: supplied The 20-year-old was labelled a “complete loner” by police, who found socks and rope used to “incapacitate and control his victims” in “heinous and wicked” attacks. “He was one dangerous b*****d,” Joanna says. “He was evil and psychotic. I was frightened for my life when he tried to strangle and smother me. “We started doing business and he immediately became violent. He was on top punching me. I said, ‘If you don’t get off me I’ll scream’. “That’s when he started to strangle me. He wasn’t strong enough to choke me out. I was fighting him and then he covered my mouth and pinched my nose to smother me.” Joanna managed to throw off Neild, chased him down and “battered him, giving him a good hiding”. In 2012, Joanna was pictured in a local newspaper after being fined £70 for loitering for the purpose of prostitution. Not only did Joanna have to endure the shame of her grandma seeing it, but also the sick reaction of her landlord – who she rented a room from in a “dingy, horrible block of flats, that was full of faeces and addicts injecting on the stairs”. “He told me, ‘Your rent is going up. I’ve seen you in the paper, you have to pay for it in sex’. He was dead direct and trying to blackmail me,” she recalls. Fortunately, adult social services moved her to a women’s hostel, but there were also abusive relationships. One punter, who moved in with her, would hide her drugs and refuse to reveal where they were for hours. Often he demanded sex too. “He was in his 60s, disgusting, abusive and played mind games,” Joanna says. “He used to beg me for sex and oral sex all the time and gave me loads of abuse.” She was imprisoned nine times and was convicted of more than 40 offences Credit: supplied She worked ‘the beat’ in Blackburn for 13 years Credit: Getty The man would try to derail her attempts to detox multiple times and often brought her drugs, likely to continue his abuse. Eventually, she kicked him out for good. After multiple attempts to detox, funding was approved for Joanna to undergo a nine-month stint in rehab, which ended in February 2019, and Joanna has been clean ever since. Now, she regularly shares her story in schools to “shed light on that world and the realities of it”. There are currently 105,000 individuals involved in the UK’s prostitution trade, according to charity Street Light UK. The majority are women and the average age is over 32. Reflecting on her journey, while Joanna feels “sad for my old self” she is also proud, knowing her “strength and resilience” led her to where she is today. She adds: “You can take good things from bad situations. It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. I survived what I lived through. I’m strong, fearless and have a lot more confidence now. “It hasn’t been easy. I didn’t speak about what happened for years. “But I know by getting the truth out there I can help other people and maybe get others to feel more empathy towards those in the sex trade.”