Prostitutes

Halfway down the hill into Tottenham on the Seven Sisters Road, a white man is standing in the dark. He has been waiting for hours, stamping his feet in the bitter cold. Midnight passes and he's still there - looking for his favourite prostitute, I am told. In which case, it is going to be a long wait.

If Kerry Weston were to risk coming out to work tonight, she could face five years in prison. Until last month she had been a regular on the street. Prostitution isn't illegal, but soliciting and loitering are, and the 32-year-old mother of three had accumulated more than 200 convictions, with a fine of £50-£100 a time. Last month, however, she became the first London prostitute to receive an Anti-social behaviour order (Asbo), banning her from soliciting or loitering in Haringey, Hackney and Islington. Breaching the order is a criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to five years.

Asbos were never intended for women like Kerry Weston. Introduced in 1999, and served under civil law, they were designed to thwart football hooligans and problem neighbours. But if their use against sex workers becomes widespread, prostitutes' old occupational hazard of a fine could soon be replaced by a long prison sentence - arguably an anomalous development, given that selling sex is not a criminal offence. Local police and councillors are delighted, and applications for Asbos have been made against four prostitutes in Brixton. The women who work Kerry Weston's beat in south Tottenham are fearful of who will be next.

The red-light stretch of the Seven Sisters Road is a bleak string of council flats, kebab shops and forecourts. By half past 10, the only lively spots are the Woodberry Tavern and the international call centre, advertising "Turky (sic) 26p", "Romania 29p", and "Legal advice for all your immigration problems". A few yards up the hill, the pavements are poorly lit and mostly empty. A thin white woman with sores across her face approaches with a wary smile. "I ain't seen you before."

I would have said that in a Puffa and jeans I'd be unlikely to be mistaken for a prostitute, but all a woman has to do to look the part here is stand still. "You're standing on my mate's corner," she says testily, "so I thought I'd come and investigate."

Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, Angelina is happy to talk about the new threat of Asbos - only it will cost. Unsurprisingly, Angelina can offer directions to the nearest cash point - but she looks nervy ("If you ain't working, you sure you ain't Old Bill? Can't be too careful now.") and has fled by the time I get back.

On the next corner up, Maria has just started her shift. She used to work with Weston, and says neither of them could believe it when the Asbo was served. "I'd never heard of one before it happened. None of us had. Didn't know what they was. I don't think Kerry thought it would be put through the court, but now she's stuck at home, and she can't survive on 60 quid a week income support." Maria, 37, has been a prostitute most of her adult life. She gets a lift in from her home in Essex each night, charges £20 for sex in a car or outside ("round the corner, over by some garages"), £30 in the customer's house, and £40 "if it isn't local". On a good night Maria, an expressionless black woman, might take home £100, on a bad night £20. The Asbos worry her, but not enough to keep her off the street.

"Police can do what they like. But unless I could find something else to do, I dunno. You get used to the money. Got a drug habit."

A car pulling up interrupts us. Maria chats to the driver, but a moment later he drives away. "He says he don't have the 20 quid. But he asked if you'd do it for cheaper." This isn't a ridiculous suggestion; some of the women, if desperate for drugs, are said to sometimes settle for a fiver.

The man waiting for Kerry Weston is still pacing the street, but she is at home, having opted against a nightly journey miles out of her area to work - a decision which could be said to demonstrate that Asbos work. But Weston is appealing against the order, indignant at the accusations made in court.

"I don't use drugs, so I don't leave needles around, I don't chuck condoms on the ground. Where I go, no one can see me with a customer." What about distress to local residents? "They use our services!"

She thinks she has been used as a test case precisely because she is a tidy, drug-free prostitute. "If they can get an order on me, it's open season on the other girls." The order is in force for five years, and only one month into it she is "bored out of her brains" and broke. "But I can't get any other work because I have more than 200 loitering convictions. It's Catch 22, isn't it?"

By 2am, the only woman still out on the street is Yvonne, an emaciated white woman who looks 20 years older than her age of 36. She seems chaotically drugged, and her scabby, rouged face falls as she sees me approach. At the news that she isn't being arrested, she hugs me.

"I've been nicked more than 700 times. The police don't like me 'cause I don't like paying my fines. I guarantee you, I'll be the next one to get an order like Kerry. It's terrifying.

"I've got hepatitis, and I might have TB. I suppose I would like to stop. But my mum done this. It's all I've known."