Funding axe closes Met human trafficking unit

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Home Office funding for the unit - the country's only specialist operational anti-trafficking team - will end next April.

It has secured a string of convictions including those last week of a gang of brothel owners and sex-traffickers.

Eleven men were given sentences of up to 14 years after Southwark crown court heard about the ordeal suffered by a 16-year-old Slovakian girl lured into sex slavery. After the case, the Home Office said combating human trafficking was a "key government priority".

The unit was given a fanfare launch in March last year and no mention made of any time limit to funding.

A Met spokesman said: "Although this money to keep this team in its current format will no longer be available from April 2009, our commitment remains to tackling those involved in these highly illegal trades."

News of the impending closure drew criticism from charities who work with trafficked women and children. Christine Beddoe, director of End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking UK, said: "We can't understand why this decision has been made. This team is so important from a UK policing perspective because London is a gateway to the country.

"Without a specialist team we are putting at risk women and children who are the victims of trafficking."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the decision to close the unit was "terribly sad and foolish". "Just as the unit was beginning to have real success the Home Office has pulled the rug out from under it," he said.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Combating human trafficking is a key government priority. Our aim is to make the UK a hostile environment for trafficking and to protect victims from this abhorrent crime.

"We have made it clear that trafficking should be core police business and a high priority, and the Home Office is continuing to support forces' efforts, notably through funding the UK Human Trafficking Centre with £1.7million this year."