THURROCK Council has called for residents to be vigilant for signs of human trafficking after it was claimed Romanian women are being used as prostitutes in the borough.

Speaking at a recent meeting of the hidden and extreme harms prevention overview and scrutiny committee, Cllr Graham Snell revealed how he had, by chance, become of aware of a Grays house being used by traffickers.

The Conservative councillor for Corringham and Fobbing, told the committee: "Sometimes you hear things in public houses. Recently there was a couple of guys talking about visiting a house of ill repute in Grays where apparently the women were all Romanian.

"The suspicion was that these were trafficked women working in Grays as prostitutes. I wonder if there's an indication that that's problem we've got in Grays or in Thurrock generally that we can look into or that we know about already because you see on news reports that does appear to be a problem of girls trafficked in to be in that trade. If that's going here we need to know about it and do something about it."

In response, Michelle Cunningham, Thurrock Community Safety Partnership manager, said: "Reports we've seen are very few and far between. In the past, when action has been taken, they've moved on already.

"I think for us the thing is to harness that community intelligence much better and raise awareness.

"That's a role we've all got to play. There are means of inputting that intelligence, either through ourselves, the police or the community through Crimestoppers.

"There is a constant need to keep raising awareness with professionals and the community on how we can report that sort of thing so that appropriate action can be taken our teams.

"The police work closely with our services to support anybody in those situations."

Ms Cunningham added: "All the policies and processes are in place to deal with those issues. It's just about how we gather that intelligence and are able to act on it.

"We are not getting reports and seeing it but we are not saying that's not happening."

Cllr Snell called for a future presentation to councillors instructing them what to do if they come across similar situations.