Property firm fined over 'brothel' flats

COCKROACHES IN A KITCHEN AND LITTLE FIRE SAFETY

- By DAVID HUNTLEY Reporter

A PROPERTY company has been fined £35,000 after people were found living in “squalid” conditions at a suspected brothel in Newcastle city centre.

Leazes Park Estates Ltd was found guilty of seven offences and fined £5,000 for each at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court.

Acting on a tip-off, an environmental health officer, accompanied by police officers, called at the flats in a converted building above a restaurant on Leazes Park Road in September 2024.

The officer inspected 10 flats ranging from one to six beds and found a series of housing breaches which could have put the occupants at risk.

The breaches included defective main doors into some of the flats that gave little protection in the event of a fire, damaged and covered smoke detectors in the communal lounges of some of the flats, no carbon monoxide detectors in the kitchens of the flats and a fire escape from one of the flats blocked by a sofa and table which could have endangered lives in the event of a fire.