Latest news with #Spangles
Daily Mail
8 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The unassuming terraced house next to an award-winning fish and chip shop is a BROTHEL - so what goes on behind closed doors, as one resident reveals: 'Punters can see into our kitchen'
Nestled close to a popular ladies hairdresser and an award-winning chippie lies this unremarkable terraced house in a small town in Derbyshire. Every day, a regular trickle of locals file past it to walk the dog, buy chips or get their hair done, unaware of what goes on inside. Even residents who live directly opposite the anonymous house in the former coal mining town of Ilkeston seem to have no idea of why men - and it is always men - regularly turn up at the front door, often looking furtive or cagey. Perhaps the first clue as to what lies within comes from the front windows which, unusually, are tinted - and then there is the sign on the front door which instructs visitors to 'please use the other entrance at rear'. A quick walk around the corner, down a side road and a left turn into a tight alleyway brings them to an unlocked gate and on heading into the small patio yard, continue past a washing line hung with bed sheets and towels to another door where a second sign asks callers to 'knock loudly' on the back door. And what awaits the male visitors who make it to this point? Those entering this portal will be met by a glamorous-looking madam who will then show them to a waiting room where one or two 'masseuses' are on hand to provide discrete personal services. Welcome to Spangles - Ilkeston's secret brothel. Located on a side street just off the town's main drag, the business, which is branded as a massage parlour but has nothing in the way of signage, has been in operation there for at least the last seven-years since moving from nearby Nottingham. It opens seven days a week at 10am and closes by 6pm. This means it is competing for any passing lunchtime trade with Kerry's Fish and Chips, two doors down on the corner - which still proudly announces how it was voted best chippie in Ilkeston in 2011. The street around Spangles is a mixture of residential and business with an accountants office, Thai restaurant and Polish supermarket as well as a legitimate massage parlour. Staff at the Headrock ladies hairdressers and the Simply Beauty parlour immediately to the left of Spangles had no idea of what lurked on the other side of their walls until this week. One woman having her hair set said: 'I just thought it was a normal house.' Yet a cursory glance at Spangles' official website would leave them with no doubts about what actually happens within. 'Experience the luxury of our exquisite massage services provided by the finest masseuses in the industry' trumpets the Spangles homepage. 'With a perfect blend of elegance and style, our talented ladies are dedicated to delivering an exceptional no-rush service that guarantees you will leave with a smile. 'Each day, we feature two or more enticing masseuses, showcasing a diverse selection of beauty—from slim and leggy blondes to voluptuous brunettes. 'Whether you prefer curvy or slim, tall or petite, our team, aged from their early 20s to late 30s, is here to cater to your desires and provide a rejuvenating experience tailored just for you. 'Indulge yourself and let us take care of you!' The girls who have suitably exotic names like 'Tia', 'Isabella ' and Sienna' are pictured in various states of undress, some leave very little to the imagination while others are a little more demure, though all faces are either hidden or blurred. Spangles includes a schedule of which girls are available on which day. When MailOnline called this week, the two masseuses on duty were 39-year-old blonde Lisa, who is seen nude in her publicity photo but covers her modesty with a large coffee table book and brunette Heidi, 26 who poses topless in white and black lingerie. Both thankfully are 'fully qualified in Level 3 full body massage'. However when we called the mobile number given on the website we were told that Heidi had gone home for the day and only Lisa was available. A 15-minute 'quickie' was £60, we learned, while a half-hour session would cost £80 or £90 if the client wanted a room with an en-suite bathroom to wash up in afterwards. So is all this legal? Technically no. Under British law, a brothel is classed as any premise - be it flat, house or massage parlour - where more than one person sells sexual services. Although It is not illegal to sell sexual services or work in a brothel it is an offence to 'keep, manage, act or assist in the management of a brothel.' The sentence is a fine or seven years in prison. Assisting in the management of a brothel can include keeping books, paying bills, holding keys and handling and logging money coming in from clients. But in reality, these long-standing laws are rarely if ever enforced. This is because the latest guidance from the National Police Chiefs' Council states: 'Brothel closures and raids create a mistrust of all external agencies . . . it is difficult to rebuild trust and ultimately reduces the amount of intelligence submitted to the police and puts sex workers at greater risk.' But even if no one is going from Derbyshire police is going to be knocking on the shop door anytime soon - the stigma attached to the business, because of its nature, is obvious. A young mother who asked not to be named lives in a flat close by with her young son and said that over the course of the last two days some 20 or so men had visited the brothel. She said: 'You can tell them a mile-off. 'They do all they can to be inconspicuous. Some pretend to be on the phone and walk down the side street and pause by the alleyway. 'I see them looking around to see who is about and if anyone clocks them, they walk straight on and pretend they're going somewhere else but really they just go round the block and come back. When the coast is clear they'll go in. 'Some are in ten minutes, others come out half an hour so later. But when they emerge from the alleyway, their heads are down and they're in a rush to get away. 'I tease them sometimes and shout things like 'you dirty tramp!'. None ever look up, they're off like a shot. 'You get a mixture of blokes who go there. Some are in their 20s and 30s and others around 60. Some are good looking and well dressed and others are scruffy who look as though they've never known the sweet embrace of a woman. 'The brothel is hidden away down the bottom of the alley. People walk past that place and have no idea what's going on inside. 'I've known about it for about six or seven years - it's the only one I know of in Ilkeston. 'I think on average I must see about 10 punters visiting there a day - although I'm sure there's a lot more who go through the door. 'But I don't like it being so close to my home. I live here with my little son. I think it's appalling that such a place exists - I wish it would be shut down.' Apprentice electrician Alfie Perkins, 21, moved into a terraced house behind the brothel with his partner in February. They had no idea that sex workers were plying their trade there but Alfie said: 'We see men going in all the time. 'At first we thought it was a block of flats but the men sometimes wait in the yard for others to come out first. 'There's never any women. It makes perfect sense now that I know what that place is. 'My partner wants to get tinted windows at the back of the house because she doesn't like the fact the punters can see into our kitchen. 'To be fair, though, there's never been any trouble there whatsoever and there's not much noise from people coming or going from the premises. 'It's funny, someone told me the other day that there was a massage parlour around here…I didn't realise it was just behind us.' A trucker in his 50s who lives a few doors down from Alfie but who wished to remain anonymous said the brothel used ingenious ways to let punters know it was open for business. He told us: 'You wouldn't know it was even there, they're very, very discreet. 'There's no signage outside, no red-light or anything like that. What they do sometimes is one of the girls will drape fluorescent workmen trousers out of an upstairs window. It's a code that they're open and ready for business. 'I've walked past and seen the trousers myself several times. There's always a lot of activity at the back of my house with blokes heading in and out. 'There used to be music playing and in the summer with the windows open you'd hear it from the street. I think they got some complaints so they stopped. 'It doesn't really bother me too much that it's there. People using their services tend to keep a low profile… for obvious reasons.' Spangles has 56 reviews on Punternet - a US-based website dubbed the 'Blue Pages' or 'Thrustpilot' in which men compare experiences of various working women. The reviews - only a handful of which are less than positive - date all the way back to December 2006, when the business was based at a health spa and sauna above a parade of shops on the Derby Road near the centre of Nottingham, where it remained until 2018 before moving to Ilkeston. One punter - who calls himself 'andybaby' on Punternet - wrote: 'Spangles is great. Easy parking behind the shops where nobody can see you get out your car and enter. 'Nice shower and changing facilities. The rooms are basic with just a massage table but they are clean.' Another client -'hxxx' - who had half an hour with two of the girl - provided a fascinating insight into trip. He wrote: 'Spangles is a really friendly place. Everyone who works there is very welcoming and the receptionist is a star. 'The rooms are rather small (barely big enough for a massage table) and the piped radio is annoying (it was quite surreal to hear the traffic report during a live lesbian sex show) but I love this place all the same. It's safe and clean.' According to the Land Registry the house that Spangles is based in belongs to former electrical contractor turned property investor Martyn Kelk. Mr Kelk, 62, bought the property for £60,000 at auction in 2018. In 2017 his then company Premier Electrical Services - which he sold a year later - was the shirt sponsor for League Two football side Notts County. He lives in a sprawling farmhouse 20-miles from Ilkeston in the Nottinghamshire village of Owthorpe. Mr Kelk is currently in Greece on holiday but he told the Mail this week of his shock: 'I had no idea that the property was being used in such a way. 'The person who runs the business and who rents the property from me is listed on my accounts as a beauty therapist. 'Once a tenant signs the lease I don't tend to hear from them unless there's a problem. I haven't been to the site for years as it's nearly an hour away from my home. 'When I bought the property, it was in a dilapidated state and I spent a year renovating it. The person who runs the business has been a tenant for about six years, I don't have the paperwork with me so I can't tell you how long the lease has left to run. 'But do I need to kick them out? A good friend of mine is a police officer, I may have to ask him for advice.' A spokeswoman for Spangles insisted they were a legitimate massage business and strongly denied that their masseuses every carry out any sexual services. They also said they had not deceived anyone over their lease.
Spectator
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Letters: How lads' mags spawned OnlyFans
Bad lads Sir: The articles on Britain's relationship with porn were fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. Fascinating in that Louise Perry and Michael Simmons's contributions ('Devices and desires' and 'Dirty money', 14 June) provided a thought-provoking analysis of the extraordinary growth of the industry. Frustrating in the juxtaposition of these pieces with Sean Thomas's delusional thoughts about 'lads' mags' ('Age of innocence'). Mr Thomas seems to recall these publications with the same dewy-eyed fondness that folk of my generation reserve for Spangles and Bagpuss. He is unable to see the direct line that joins them to the worst excesses of OnlyFans. It's all there in both – the same objectification of women, the betrayal of sex, the sad loneliness and repressed shame of the consumer, the denial of the negative effect on society and the castigation of those who wince or demur as dinosaurs or prudes. The only difference between FHM and OnlyFans, apart from the magazine's inability to grow its figures, is that the internet has enabled the production of and access to this sort of content on a much greater scale. Michael Harrison Belfast Derby match Sir: In her admirable exposé of the dirty deeds on OnlyFans, Louise Perry notes that two of its most depraved performers are 'oddly' both from Derbyshire. Perhaps it is more predictable than odd for some. Brought up in prim Peterborough in the 1950s, I was used to hearing that girls who turned to prostitution had 'gone to Derby' – which very often they had. Christopher Gray Oxford Mass appeal Sir: It is a pity that Damian Thompson ('Critical mass', 14 June) trivialises the issues vexing Pope Leo XIV as regards the treatment of the Tridentine form of the Mass. The current debate about the liturgy is not just about Latin. Indeed, the reformed liturgy (the Novus Ordo Mass) can be said anywhere, and in Latin, by any Catholic priest. And yet, as Damian rightly says, there is an increasingly vocal campaign, especially among Generation Z Catholics, for the tolerance and even the full legalisation of the Tridentine Mass. But this is not simply an argument about 'bells'n'smells' or even trying to preserve a beautiful and ancient liturgy. It is a war between the old pre-Vatican II Church and the post-conciliar movement which has been imposed on Catholics since 1965. The Tridentine Mass expresses the traditional theology taught by the Church since the death of St John the Apostle and it cannot be allowed to coexist alongside the new theology (some would call it ideology) which the bishops are trying to enforce. Countless pronouncements by Pope Francis and Cardinal Roche have confirmed that we now have a theology which runs in direct opposition to that taught for almost 2,000 years until the Second Vatican Council. This is why there can be no tolerance of the Tridentine rite, which represents a flagship of opposition to the conciliar reforms. Latin Mass lovers are accused of opposing Vatican II and the New Mass, something they hotly deny. I would say that those who campaign for the Tridentine Mass and ignore the underlying doctrinal contradictions it represents are no more than romantics. It is for this reason that the Church authorities will sweep them aside. Joseph Bevan Dover, Kent Pros and cons Sir: Prue Leith makes many good points about prisons and charities ('Jail break', 14 June), but she doesn't make the key one: that two-thirds of prisoners shouldn't be in the sort of prisons they are. Of Britain's 90,000 inmates, about 30,000 are extremely dangerous and should be kept away from the public. About 30,000 are mentally inadequate and should probably be under lock and key – but don't need to be in Category A, B or C prisons where they are bullied and learn nothing, not least because most of them can't read. The remaining third are addicts, and should be in rehabilitation centres where they might be cured. Instead of building more high-security prisons at vast expense, we should build lock-up centres and rehab centres, both of which would cost less. I visited about 20 prisons when I helped Action For Prisoners' Families, and they all told the same tale. David Astor Milton-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire Good hare day Sir: Charles Moore's thoughts about hares (Notes, 14 June) reminds me of the day I went to the local post office to obtain a licence to sell game. I needed this as I was proposing to sell hares, which were then plentiful on the Kent marshes. The woman behind the counter said she needed to ask me three questions. 1) Was I an innkeeper? No, just a farmer. 2) Was I the driver of a stagecoach? Definitely not. 3) Was I a higgler? Stumped by this question, I asked what one was. She said 'someone who higgles for trade outside a cattle market': in other words, picks up return loads of livestock after an auction. Again, no. She then asked for a very small sum and gave me my licence. These requirements are set out in the 1831 Game Act and as far as I know are still in force. The three professions mentioned would all be capable of handling game illegally killed by poachers. Stephen Skelton London SW6 Animal instinct Sir: Anthony Whitehead's piece on lonely-hearts ads ('Notes on…', 14 June) reminds me of the glorious misprint I found in one posh Sunday paper: 'Looking for a significant otter.' Larry Spence Girvan, South Ayrshire Write to us letters@
