Forty-one men have been arrested by police in Ealing as part of Operation Tolkien, a crackdown on kerb-crawling and street prostitution in Southall.

Of the 41 men arrested, 24 have been charged and have appeared in Ealing Magistrates Court. 16 pleaded guilty for solicitation related offences and 1 pleaded guilty to sexual touching and soliciting.

Six men pleaded not guilty to soliciting with trials to set at a later date. One of the men was given a 7 day custodial sentence. One of the men failed to appear and a warrant has been issued. The remaining men will be returning on police bail in the near future.

The arrests were made between July and September, and are the result of ongoing work between the Ealing Council funded Safer Southall Police Problem Solving team and local Safer Neighbourhood Officers.

The men who have appeared at Court and convicted so far, mostly from the Southall area, are:

Mohamed FAROUK	Claypole Drive TW5	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £205
Satnam DANG	Rosamun Street UB2	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £175
Sushil KUMAR	Bixley Close UB2	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £305
Rakesh JERATH	Grange Road UB1	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £377
Harjit SINGH	Bulstrode Avenue TW3	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £377
Jaroslaw NOWAK	Walton Gardens TW13	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £271
Robert POPIELINSKI	Goring Way UB6	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £393
Ranjit SINGH	Keith Road UB3	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £305
Paramjeet Singh GILL	Talbots Drive SL6	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £305
Madhu Sudan MEHTA	Vicarage Farm Road TW5	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £285
Yakub SHAD	Unwin Road TW14	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £190
Eduard MIRICA	No Fixed Abode	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £305
Leonard CALIN	Salt Hill Drive SL1	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £305
Bilal KHAN	Longridge Lane UB1	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £171
Narinder SINGH	No Fixed Abode	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £180
Pradeep ANGRE	Ealing Road HA0	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £715
Shabaz HASSAN	Kingston Road UB2	Pleaded Guilty	Fined £355

A total of £4,864 has been handed out in so far to the men charged with soliciting a person in a street or public place for the purpose of obtaining sexual services from them as a prostitute.

Chief Inspector Colin Wingrove, from Ealing Police, said: "We want to send a strong message that approaching a woman and asking her for sex in exchange for money will not be tolerated. We have responded robustly to residents concerns about the presence of men approaching women in the street, on foot or in cars, asking for sexual services. We have sought to make the streets safer by targeting those men and take action against prostitutes causing a nuisance to local residents."

Borough Commander Nev Nolan said; "Residents, particularly women have told us they felt less safe at night because of the problem. The area is benefiting from fantastic regeneration projects and partnership working which will boost Southall’s reputation. We doing all we can to help that happen, restore pride to the area, and most importantly make residents to feel safer."

"It is the view of Ealing Police that positive, robust prosecutions of these men are necessary to make it clear that such behaviour will not be tolerated."

Cabinet member for community services and safety, Councillor Ranjit Dheer, said: "This is unacceptable anti-social behavior in our community, as everyone has the right to walk down the street without feeling intimidated and harassed. We will continue to work closely with the police to deal with this issue."

The operation will continue.