Police urging local newspapers not to ban adult advertising, says Newspaper Society

Local newspapers are being discouraged by the police from banning adult advertising for fears it could drive prostitution "underground", according to the Newspaper Society.

The society's comments follow calls from former Birmingham Mail editor Steve Dyson for an end to newspapers taking such adverts.

Writing on his blog, Dyson claimed that by printing adult advertising for services such as massage parlours, local and regional newspapers were "sullying" themselves.

"I call for the newspaper industry itself to completely ban all blatant sex ads. Even if the majority describe legal services, they simply do not suit what should be the style of regional and local papers," he writes. "Taste issues aside, deep down we also know that such adverts can support trades that we would not like to put our names to".

But the Newspaper Society told Journalism.co.uk that the legality of prostitution means some local newspapers are being "actively discouraged" by local police from completely banning adult advertising.

"The final decision on whether or not to run an advertisement would have to be taken by individual publishers," a spokesman told Journalism.co.uk. "It may not always be easy to distinguish between legitimate and non-legitimate advertisements, bearing in mind that prostitution is legal in the UK. For that reason, many newspapers have pulled the ads completely but some newspapers are being actively discouraged from doing this by their local police forces to avoid driving this underground.

"In some areas, we understand that the police have agreed publishing guidelines with many local papers, which work with them for example to enable follow up enquiries. We have also asked the government to encourage all the relevant agencies to adopt a more co-ordinated and coherent approach at local level".

In 2008 the Society agreed to strengthen its guidelines surrounding such adverts following meetings with the government, who wanted to tackle the issue of human trafficking and its links to prostitution.

In a statement at the time the society's director David Newell said it had raised the issue with local and regional press and was updating its guidance to "ensure it fully reflects new concerns about the link between prostitution and human trafficking".

Some newspaper groups have decided to ban all adverts of an adult nature in their publications, including Newsquest, Johnston Press and some other family-run publications.

Those that have not implemented a total ban told Journalism.co.uk they do not support any illegal activities and many follow industry guidelines, such as the Newspaper Society's, to decide what is published.

This headline of this article was changed on 25/08/10 to include "says Newspaper Society".

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