A PROSTITUTE made subject to an anti-social behaviour order banning her from Blackburn’s red light district was caught inside the exclusion zone.

Blackburn magistrates heard Natasha Coker was not loitering in the area, she was running through it. And she later told police she was fleeing from a ‘client’ she had ‘ripped off’ the week before.

Coker, 23, of Hollin Bridge Street, pleaded guilty to breach of an ASBO and breach of a curfew order.

She was made subject to a community supervision order for 12 months with a six-month drug rehabilitation requirement.

Roger Pickles, defending, said Coker had always known she would not be able to comply with the curfew order.

“She is a prostitute working the streets at night,” said Mr Pickles.

He said she still works in that ‘trade’ occasionally but has sought assistance and was now in receipt of a methadone prescription and benefits.

“She has cut her heroin intake from £200 a day to an occasional £20,” said Mr Pickles. “She still works as a prostitute but because of the ASBO but she has to do it out of the area and that makes it more difficult and not as lucrative.

“She is having to do what the court wanted her to do and that is change her life,” he added.