PROSTITUTES are back selling sex in the heart of East Oxford after police drove them out three years ago.

Police said the women had ventured back onto Cowley Road from their regular spots in Cowley.

Officers say the public have reported seeing working girls soliciting in the road itself, and in side-streets.

Passers-by have also complained of clients being taken into the graveyard at the parish church of Ss Mary and John.

Last night police blamed kerb-crawlers for keeping the girls in business – insisting clients were the more serious offenders.

Most of the women are selling their bodies to fund drug and alcohol habits.

East Oxford neighbourhood sergeant Lewis Boyce said he did not know why the girls had moved on from the former hotspots in Cowley.

He said: “Potentially, they might get more business, as there could be a higher footfall of people for them to attract.”

He added: “When I came in 2000, Cowley Road was known as an area where prostitutes worked. But in the three years I have been working here, there have been no constant reports of prostitution.

“It is only in the past few weeks that we have had reports that they have come back.”

Thames Valley Police estimate up to 10 prostitutes could be working the streets of Oxford.

Sgt Boyce said: “We had reports towards the end of the summer that some of the girls who used to work in Cowley Road were coming down to the churchyard.

“We patrolled it extensively through September and, in the past week or so, we have had reports that they are also working outside Tesco and in an area in Leon Close, where we believe there may be something going on. We liaise frequently with our partners from the council and we aim to identify them.

“If we see a prostitute acting suspiciously we have the power to give them a caution for soliciting.

“When they have had two warnings in three months we will arrest them.

“They will then be classed as a common prostitute and will go to court for punishment.”

But he added: “The girls can only work if people are using them. The people who use them are the more serious offenders.

“I have found people with prostitutes before, who have a wife and kids at home.

“What they have done then sinks in if their details are published, if their family find out, or if they get a criminal record.”

Oxford City Council said it did not know how many prostitutes were working in Oxford, but said it was ‘not a significant problem’.