News Colin Pic Lucy Taylor Police raid at Angels, Ipswich ES 25.3.11 ES 9.11.11

A brothel owner is today subject to a curfew after a judge spared him a prison sentence for keeping a town vice den.

Danny Yallop, who helped manage the brothel

Danny Burrows, of Cherry Blossom Close, Pinewood, appeared at Ipswich Crown Court on Tuesday where he was sentenced to a 12-month prison term, suspended for two years.

The 63-year-old was arrested following a police raid at Angels massage parlour in Woodbridge Road, close to the junction with Orchard Street.

Burrows was manager of the sex parlour, while his co-defendant 71-year-old Peter Yallop, of St Clement’s Church Lane, pleaded guilty to assisting in the management of a brothel.

Yallop, who supported Burrows in court, was sentenced at an earlier hearing to an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with a 12-month supervision requirement.

Daniel Chadwick, for Burrows, told the court his client had acquired the brothel as a debt owed to him. He said when Burrows became aware of what was happening, “he turned a blind eye”.

When Angels was raided in March last year, four women were located there.

Sentencing Burrows, Judge David Goodin told the court: “I accept that the women who worked for the establishment you ran were not forcibly coerced into doing what they did.

“It is by its very nature exploiting human weaknesses of both sides of the gender divide. It is absolutely plain that you knew what was going on.”

Judge Goodin said he accepted that in the aftermath of the Ipswich killings the gaze of the world was focused on the town’s sex industry and it was widely accepted that working in a brothel was preferable to working on the streets.

But he added: “It does not make your offending any the less serious.”

Speaking outside court, Burrows, told The Star he felt the judge’s decision was “a fair sentence”.