CT: You stress in your book that women who turn to prostitutes are less criminals and more victims. What was it about your encounters with prostitutes that led you to think that?
TC: Sometimes when a woman came to us we’d have a cup of tea together in the Living Room (the meeting space at the Magdalene Group’s base in Norfolk) and their eyes were so dark. Their souls had been robbed from them and they had no idea where they were. Drugs go hand in hand with prostitution and they play a horrible part in the body. They destroy who people are and who they are meant to be.

When I went out to the streets I used to think ‘Why?’ ‘Why are they out there?’ There’s got to be a root. Sometimes the root is in their childhood, the abuse in their childhood, or coercion by someone they thought loved them – a young man or a family member. There are people out there whose parents are on drugs and it’s handed down to the children. There are so many desperate people in need and sometimes they just turn to drugs instead of knowing just how amazing God’s love is. They are hurting and they are broken.


CT: You and the other volunteers at the Magdalene Group were often putting yourselves in dangerous situations by going out and meeting these women. Did you ever feel afraid?
TC: Never. I never ever felt afraid. The first time I went out I felt it was really good to have some flasks in front of me! I felt that was going to be the barrier-maker just in case they were going to swear at me or spit at me. Then I could back off and there would be something in between us! It’s quite silly really. I remember saying to my friend ‘we must take something out’, ‘we must offer them a hot drink’.

We didn’t have a leaflet or even a card. All we could say was that we had come out to see if they wanted any help and it was amazing. We were never ever threatened and if one of them slipped up and swore they would immediately say ‘oh, I’m sorry’ and we would say ‘it’s ok, don’t worry about it’. And it was ok, because I began to see a vision unfold and just felt God was with us.

When you go out onto the street where these women are working there is that dark oppression, you feel it. You feel it but you are not scared of it. I used to go home and ring my eyes out in my bedroom because I knew I’d left someone out there that’s homeless, sleeping in a car park or at the back of the railway station.

God’s broken my heart so many times - it’s not being a do-gooder because if you were a do-gooder you would walk away from it. You couldn’t stand it. There is such a difference between this and being a do-gooder.

The work we do isn’t fluffy. It still breaks my heart and that’s why I carry on. I have a passion for this work and so there’s no end, there’s no retirement.


CT: You also encountered the pimps. Tell us about that.
TC: One of them came to give me a telling off and when we were closed for the night I invited him to my office and he said ‘why are you doing it?’. I explained to him that there was a lack of support for the women and that they were people, they were women with hearts who were once little children. And he said ‘well, there’s got to be more than that?’ and I said ‘being a Christian opens a new world to you, a new acceptance of people where they’re at and we just want to help’ and he said ‘well, what can you do for me?’. It was amazing, he was no threat. Later he got away from the gang he was in. We’ve never had a threat from partners or anyone connected to them. They just wanted to stand alongside us and protect us.


CT: You wrote your new book because you want to change attitudes. Does that include changing attitudes in the church?
TC: Everywhere. All people. Christians and non-Christians. I got into this work because I was a Justice of the Peace on the bench and I would see them coming in front of me in the court and there wasn’t any support for them. I didn’t understand them and there are many good people in the churches who just don’t know. I didn’t know or understand until I got out of the judge’s chair and went out onto the streets.

We don’t mean to but we look at someone and straight away we’ve made an opinion or an assessment. But I’d love it if we didn’t judge. I would like people to have a tender heart towards these women and just get a glimpse of what they go through. There is so much evil and darkness in the world and I would like people to see them as God sees them. I would just like people to show that kind of compassion and look at the stories, go to these places on the streets, go to the voluntary organisations that have got the experience.

My hope is that when people read the book they feel the tenderness of God’s heart for those hurting people.


CT: Some TV shows and films often glamorise prostitution.

TC: The reality is that it is not glamorous at all. I know of people working with prostitutes in Thailand and it is exactly the same there as it is here. It is evil. So many of the girls say ‘I’m nothing, no one cares and this is what I’ll always be’ and that’s not true.


CT: You believe that prostitutes are more victims than criminals but cynics would say that it was their choice to be prostitutes.
TC: Yes, it always comes back to ‘It’s their choice to do that’. I got that a lot when I started in this work. But if people knew their circumstances – which many people don’t – then they would know that these women don’t have a choice and just how easily they are coerced into this work.

It is so easy for young people to get involved in prostitution and drugs - because the drugs come first. And then that will get out of control and then they will be controlled by their pimps and boyfriends or even husbands. It is all about control and fear. They fear the boyfriends, they fear their husbands.

They are controlled by these things and they don’t have a choice because the choice has been taken away from them. They are so addicted to the drugs that the drugs take over their mind and how can you make an informed choice when you’ve got a body full of drugs? You can’t.


CT: You write in your book that prostitutes are just normal human beings. Were you surprised by how human they were?
TC: Oh yes, even now I am just so amazed. I now run STEP (Standing Together Encouraging People) for women who have left prostitution and they have come to a place where they are now peer mentoring and helping one another. When I first met many of them years ago they would be spitting at one another and would really want to have a fight with one another because someone had taken their spot.

I would just think to myself ‘that could be my daughter coming before me’. Some of these youngsters came from really great families that loved them.


CT: It seems like prostitution is here to stay.
TC: The scale of the problem is huge and the work goes on. The vision continues and 50-plus projects have come under the umbrella of the Beyond the Streets coalition. We’ve got to be aware and alert of what is going on and what people are being drawn into.


CT: You said there is no quick fix when women decide that they no longer want to be on the streets. How do you keep going when some of the women fall back into prostitution again?
TC: The first step is deciding not to do it anymore. Some will leave it straight away because of the circumstances. Sometimes because they have been raped viciously in a way that will affect them for the rest of their lives, other times it is because of the loss of their children. Sometimes their lives were threatened. But there will be some kind of drastic change in their circumstances that will help pick them up.

There was one woman who sold herself for four cans of lager. That showed her she had to stop because she was going to lose her young son and he would become an orphan. But if they don’t have those sorts of circumstances it’s really hard because they will relapse. It’s like anything that you like, be it coffee, chocolate or tea. You stop for a while or manage a diet and then people say ‘oh, just have one’.

When you are bringing up children you tell them not to do it and then they do it, but you still love them. Jesus is like that with us when we fall down. He still loves us and invites us back. With these women, how can we turn our backs on them? We can’t.

I can only do so much. I can only love them. And it’s like with children. We don’t love what they’re doing but we love them.

Sometimes they are doing great and then suddenly someone will come back into their lives and that will draw them back into that lifestyle. But we want to say ‘when you are ready we are here and that door is always open’. The handle is there, you’ve just got to push it.

You can give them food but love is greater than anything you can give and that goes for anyone in life. Showing love gives hope. I have such compassion for that person no matter what they look like I thank God that I can see beyond what they look like. I thank God that I can see beyond the raincoat that covers up a bra and knickers out on the streets.


CT: Do you think prostitution can ever really be tackled?
TC: The Government’s prostitution strategy [which looks at penalising the client rather than the prostitute] was long overdue. It took 15 years to get to that in 2004 and I am so thrilled to be part of that. The Swedish model seems to be working. Demand has gone down significantly. Those who are purchasing ought to be dealt with as well because they are going home to wives and girlfriends and we have to look at the STDs which are on the increase. Some of these guys will pay more for unprotected sex and how ludicrous is that. That is so dangerous for them as well. So the protection that comes from reducing demand is for them as well because God didn’t create us to be used like that.


CT: What kind of interest did the women express in God? Were they conscious of God being a good God?

TC: Yes, but you did get the odd few saying ‘why did all this happen to me?’ And we would have to say God gave us a free will and we explain what Jesus did on the cross and that Jesus came to give us new life and freedom. We explained in a very simple way. We wouldn’t say ‘do you want to pray the sinners prayer?’. We would suggest a church for them to go to and how they could be linked in to church with people who would love them as they were. It didn’t always work because the church people didn’t always understand. If they would only read the Word and see how Jesus saved that woman from being stoned. I took one girl to church and another woman came up to her and said ‘I used to be dirty like you’. She used to be this kind of girl but her past does not determine her future.

At STEP the women have a Bible study and it’s so wonderful to see them now. He is watering the project with incredible volunteers and professional people but our dream is still a dream to have a house for the women.

CT: Are the conversions your most rewarding moments?
TC: Yes, and how they are sharing their love with us. They are so transparent. We can sit in church each week and never know the people around us. Our girls are transparent because they see the love and that you want to help and that you give them hope. They are as open as can be because they see the love radiate. Everyone rejoices when someone comes to have a personal relationship but also when they sit with us to have a cuppa and that woman trusts them with some really sensitive information, because it doesn’t happen with the police, with social services, with the authorities, with the hospitals. But it happens with us because there is that unconditional love that reaches them.