Police hunt fugitive brothel manager who has been sentenced to three years’ jail time

A Highgate vice queen who ran a string of brothels “like a dictator” has been jailed for three years.

Tugba Atila, 32, earned at least half a million pounds a year from more than a dozen bordellos she managed. The brothel manageress, who was in a relationship with a law firm worker, is being hunted by the police after failing to show up at Southwark Crown Court today (Friday, February 3).

The court heard how the illicit premises in Tottenham and Wood Green were staffed largely by cash-strapped women from eastern Europe who serviced local Turkish men.

Officers lifted the lid on the operation after carrying out ‘test purchases’ at one of the establishments in Seven Sisters Road.

Atila, of Ridgeway Gardens, denied a string of controlling prostitution charges at a trial which began on January 10.

Judge Gledhill QC said: “I’m satisfied she ran these premises in a bullying and dictatorial way, exploiting the vulnerability of these women, who for whatever reasons had fallen into prostitution as a means of making a living and who ended up working for her.

“Atila is a brazen, arrogant and haughty young woman who was making huge sums of money out of others.”

Susannah Stevens, prosecuting, said Atila and other brothel managers in the area shared the working girls across up to 15 addresses.

She said: “All these brothels followed the same hierarchy and general rules. At the very bottom of the organisation are the working girls themselves.

“These girls had to adhere to the rules of the brothel, follow the directions given to them, such as to their dress and which client they were with, and then, significantly had to give up to half of all the money they received to the controller of the brothel.”