A MONTH after Preston police launched a ground-breaking plan to cut kerb crawling and prostitution, our reporter Ben Hewes went out with the officers responsible to find out how it's working.

OPERATION Kerb, which began on February 21, sees a team of officers patrolling the Deepdale area of Preston for five hours at a time.

On Tuesday, March 27, two uniformed and four plain-clothes officers joined the operation which also aims to help prostitutes break the drug habits that put most of them on the streets.

Plain-clothes man PC Gareth Pearson said: "It's the problems in the residential areas that have created the need for this response. People are living in fear of being approached by kerb crawlers. The vast majority of the prostitutes are addicted to heroin or cocaine, so we offer drug referral services."

The officers revealed that many of the women spend around £120 every day on drugs. By removing the clients, the women are forced out of business, and are offered help to get off drugs.

Patrolling in an unmarked police car, fitted with strobe lights and radio equipment was Sergeant Mark Farnworth and PC Mark Wearden. They visited prostitution hot-spots and laid in wait, lights dimmed, for kerb crawlers.

Then five colleagues, four men and a woman, took it in turns to walk around the area in plain clothes, reporting back with anything they saw.

In two hours the officers had spotted up to ten prostitutes and were watching out for kerb crawlers, hoping to catch them in the act to give them enough proof to make an arrest.

By midnight two kerb crawlers had been caught. One, a businessman, received his first warning. The second was stopped in his car with a young prostitute, and was arrested.

PC Mark Wearden, who claims to have once stopped a kerb crawler from Paris, said: "The businessman is scared. He'll go away, and never come back. But with the other man, we've got the information we need to convict him in court."

By 2am, the officers were ready to call it a day. But some of the women could be working all night, trying to raise the money for their next fix.

PC Wearden added: "They say they're having to take an average of £100 a night, and it's a bad night if they come away with £20.

"They'll even go and live with a drug dealer just to get their supply. Shop-lifting is too much hard work for them -- they just don't respect their bodies."