Christians clear prostitutes' cards from phone boxes

Theologian Mark Greene collects prostitutes' advertisement cards. Every day he goes to his local central London phone box and gathers the explicit ads. Now he wants other Christians to follow his example wherever the phone-box cards are on display.

Theologian Mark Greene collects prostitutes' advertisement cards. Every day he goes to his local central London phone box and gathers the explicit ads. Now he wants other Christians to follow his example wherever the phone-box cards are on display.

This is not, however, another churchman heading for a starring role in a Sunday tabloid exposé: Mr Greene has begun a one-man crusade to rid the nation's phone boxes of what he calls "pornography in a public space".

The Evangelical Alliance, which represents a million British churchgoers, is backing his campaign to clear out the cards, many of which carry lurid pictures of the prostitutes and graphic descriptions of the services they offer.

Under the Adopt-a-Phone-Box scheme, Christians will team up in groups of three or four, cleaning their local phone box of prostitutes' cards several times a day. The organisation recommends that Christians work in teams to avoid violent confrontations with "tom-carders", the prostitutes' agents, who earn £30 for every 100 cards placed in phone boxes.

Mr Greene, executive director of the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity, is already doing a daily clean-up of his local phone box in Oxford Street, London's main shopping street. Despite having been attacked by a "tom-carder" while removing cards from a box, Mr Green is adamant that he will continue his campaign and hopes that thousands of other Christians will join him.

"The issue is one of public space. It is pornography in a public space. It's my neighbourhood and my street. I don't want my children seeing this."

British Telecom estimates that the number of cards placed in the UK's telephone boxes has risen from 14 million in 1990 to 50 million today. They claim that the number of cards in boxes has led to a loss of revenue for the company as it "discourages people from using pay phones."

London, Manchester and Brighton and Hove are major targets for the "tom-carders", who have been at work in the UK since the early Eighties. Children as young as five at schools close to card-filled phone boxes have even been seen playing Pokémon-style games with the cards, trading them in the playgrounds.

But BT, which cleans an estimated 1,000 London telephone kiosks of prostitutes' cards each day, rejects the idea of local people tackling the problem themselves. Les King, PR and media relations manager for BT Payphones, said: "We certainly wouldn't advise people to do this [clearing phone boxes] because it might lead people into confrontation with people who put these cards in the boxes and they might be subject to actual violence."

BT also blocks the lines of numbers on prostitutes' cards – when they are reported to them by members of the public. But this has tended only to persuade the prostitutes to use mobile phones and phone companies that do not put call-bars on their numbers.

The Christians' initiative has been welcomed by Westminster City Council, which is due to sponsor legislation to make "tom-carding" a criminal offence. At present it is only a civil offence, leading to fines of £30-£200. Under the proposed change, fines would rise to £1,000. However, such legislation is unlikely to be passed in the current parliament.

Westminster councillor Kit Malthouse said: "If people-power goes out there to clear them [phone boxes] it will shame the Government into doing something about it. But a lot of the people in prostitution are violent and unpleasant and I would hate a confrontation to arise between an elderly Christian lady and an aggressive pimp. But if they do it in groups and feel safe, then more power to their arm."