Police and councillors are taking to the streets in a bid to stop prostitutes and their customers from operating in Normanton and Pear Tree. Crime reporter Martin Naylor joined them.

"WHAT do you mean, I'm under arrest? I've done nothing wrong," says the attractive Romanian girl.

"I don't understand what I have done. I'm just getting food with my friend," she insists.

But Acting Sergeant Trevor Allt and PC Lee Batchelar know otherwise.

Both she and her sister, who was caught walking up and down Normanton Road, are prostitutes.

PC Batchelar approaches the dark-haired girl, who is dressed in tight trousers and wearing thick make-up.

"You know you are under a curfew," he tells her. "You are not allowed to be out between the hours of 7pm and 7am, that was part of your conviction.

"It was what the courts told you and you have breached that. You're under arrest."

Operation Scarlet is in full flow in Normanton and Pear Tree, following on from a similar campaign held last year.

New this year are citizens' patrols, which have seen members of the public and councillors join the police on high-visibility walkabouts around the areas where prostitutes are known to be operating.

This year's focus, as well as arresting girls soliciting for business, is on the men who seek prostitutes for sex – the kerb crawlers.

In the first few weeks of 2012, 14 men have been caught loitering for sex.

Three of them, including a 72-year-old from Alvaston and a hospital consultant from Birmingham, have been issued with cautions.

But the remaining 11 have been charged and will go through the court system.

They include a former Gurkha soldier, a takeaway driver caught on his way back from delivering food to a customer and a 60-year-old family man from Matlock.

If convicted, they face the shame of being named on the police's website and in the local media.

Acting Sgt Allt said: "All in all, 70 people have been interviewed in connection with either soliciting for sex or seeking sex since the operation was relaunched last month.

"The range of men we are catching coming to the area is huge.

"People travel from Nottingham, Burton, Alfreton and sometimes further afield.

"They are businessmen, students, unemployed men.

"The warnings that we have put out don't seem to put them off. Maybe the naming and shaming will do."

PC Batchelar said one man was caught earlier this week after a plainclothes patrol followed him and a girl who had got into his car.

He said: "We were parked in the car park in Grove Street when the girl approached his car, leaned in through the window and got in.

"The car drove off so we got behind them, where he parked up by a cashpoint machine to get the money out for his transaction."

Acting Sgt Allt estimates that there are about 40 known prostitutes working in the area. He said they walk up and down Normanton Road from its junction with Hartington Street down to Lower Dale Road.

Another area which is patrolled by both uniformed and plainclothes officers is around Portland Street, where prostitutes are again known to be operating.

During the patrols on Thursday night, three girls were arrested, all for breaching terms of sentences previously imposed on them for soliciting. All were Romanian.

PC Batchelar said: "For the past two years there have been a number of Romanian girls working in the area.

"My understanding is that they will work in one city for a short while, then be trafficked to another once their faces start to get known by the local police.

"Our problem with them is in terms of communication as you could arrest a Romanian girl at midnight but an interpreter is not available until the following morning, so they can't get processed as quickly."

This year's operation has been aided by funding from the Arboretum and Normanton neighbourhood boards, which have released £7,000 for the police.

Part of this has gone to produce posters warning kerb crawlers to keep out of the area and to buy two new handheld cameras for officers to take out on patrol with them.

Councillors Hardyal Dhindsa, Farhatullah Khan, Balbir Sandhu and Jangir Khan have been on a number of the citizens on patrol walkabouts.

Mr Dhindsa said: "Like all of the councillors for the two wards, the problems of prostitution were brought to my attention by people who are concerned about the effect it is having in the area and on their lives.

"The community vice patrols have, I am told, helped reassure them that their fears and concerns are being looked at seriously."

Farhatullah Khan agreed. He said: "Normanton and Pear Tree have had an issue with prostitution going back a number of years.

"I don't think it is ever going to go away completely but we are looking at ways in which we can reassure the public that we are trying to do something about it, both in collaboration with the police and from a council perspective.

"Normanton is a multi- cultural, thriving and proud community and we want to show the people who live and work here, through the patrols, that we are doing what we can to minimise the problem of prostitution in the area."

In December, two brothels were closed down by the police, both of which were in Hartington Street.

Acting Sgt Allt explained that, although prostitution itself is not illegal, soliciting for business is.

He said a number of girls were working legally, from their houses, where regular clients visited.

A prostitute in Derby could have as many as 20 customers in a single night.

He said: "We have issued around 50 cautions either for loitering or soliciting so far this year and we are confident that the work we are doing is deterring potential customers from coming to the area looking for sex."