A woman has been found guilty of two charges of unlawfully permitting a suburban business in a house outside the allowable hours, but charges relating to the running of a brothel in Phillipstown have not been proved.
Judge Craig Thompson’s verdicts on the five charges faced by Fan Jiang were given in a reserved decision released at the Christchurch District Court.
Evidence in the trial was heard over six days from June to November. The prosecution had been brought by the Christchurch City Council relating to a brothel being run in a house in England Street in 2014 where a large amount of cash was found by counsel inspectors.
Jiang was found not guilty of charges of operating or permitting a brothel outside the area permitted by the council, operating a business at the address without having someone engaged in the business permanently living there, and by using too much of the residential property’s floor space for a business when it had no planning consent.
The council has specific areas in its City Plan where brothels are permitted, but its bylaw allows small owner-operated brothels which can operate anywhere in Christchurch. They must have no more than four sex workers and the women must retain control over their earnings.
Jiang owned the England Street property but said she was the landlord.
Judge Thompson said he had heard enough evidence from neighbours about people arriving and leaving the property late at night to establish a reasonable belief that it was a brothel which was operating outside of the allowable hours and quite possibly had more than four sex workers.
A business in a Living Zone may only operate between 7am and 11pm from Monday to Friday, and 8am to 11pm on weekends and holidays.
He found the brothel’s hours breached those rules for one charge, and also breached the rules about hours of operation in an abatement notice that the council had issued.
The evidence did not show beyond reasonable doubt that there were more than four sex workers operating at the property, which ruled out one of the other charges.
But Judge Thompson noted that two bundles of cash had been found by the council inspectors. One was marked “Lisa” with the dates March 25 to April 3, 2014, an average of $937 a day. The second was marked “Coco” with the dates March 14 to April 3, 2014, an average of $884 a day.
The cash was found in separate, named compartments in a drop box at the property. This suggested each woman did have control over her own earnings.
At the time of one council search, there were only two names on the compartments, but at an earlier visit there were five names. The judge said that would have been very strong evidence that more than sex workers were operating at the premises but the date on the charge did not include that date.
Judge Thompson said it was “just not credible” for Jiang to claim that she did not know how the business was being operated. Her own evidence that she was there for one or two nights every week during the relevant period made it implausible that she had passed every element of control over to another woman who was named during the trial.
Jiang’s sentencing on the two charges for which she was convicted has been set for January 29.
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