A New Zealand hooker scored a $21,000 payday after winning a landmark sexual harassment case against the sleazy owner of the brothel where she plied her tawdry though legal trade.
The unidentified lady of the night was frightened and degraded by sexual and intimidating comments, the country’s Human Rights Review Tribunal found, according to The New Zealand Herald.
The woman was a “sex worker” at the Kensington Gentlemen’s Club, a Wellington brothel managed by Aaron Montgomery and owned by his partner, Tara Elizabeth Brockie, from October 2009 to June 2010.
According to its website, the club “is a leading Wellington brothel and escort agency, with sophisticated girls and services available ranging from casual sex to high-class escorts, fetishes, bi-double girl packages, and much more” and that “all your fantasies can come true.”
The club, the site bragged, only hired “beautiful and young ladies who would not normally work in this industry. They are only available for a short time either saving for their ‘OE’ [overseas experience] or achieving their financial goals, most have normal careers and other commitments.”
But Montgomery wasn’t so classy, making lewd comments about her body, and telling her he liked doing the nasty with the other prostitutes, the tribunal found.
The creep said weekends were his “play time,” when he liked to get stoned and have sex with the other hookers in his “special room” at the Kensington.
The shameless rogue dished details about his sexual prowess, and was particularly smitten with “young, skinny girls” who worked at the brothel, the paper reported.
Montgomery boasted that he could do what he liked with the girls, and that “most girls will do anything for me anyway,” the tribunal said.
The decision said Montgomery often yelled at the woman for talking to other sex workers about the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective — which supports sex workers’ rights and educates the hookers on how to avoid STDs and other dangers of the sex trade.
He was also angry that she rented a house with other sex workers because he didn’t want them to socialize outside of work for fear they might get ideas that could put a damper on his sexcapades.
While driving her home once, he told her he would “take her out of her comfort zone,” a comment she perceived as a threat to fire or even assault her.
The hooker said the comments scared her to the point that she could hardly sleep or eat, and that she was left feeling depressed and degraded.
Montgomery, she complained, was trying to “break her and control her.”
Montgomery denied all the charges, saying he never threatened or yelled at the woman.
He said he never had sex with the girls who worked for him, and that the woman was a disgruntled employee looking for vengeance and a quick buck.
The NZPC’s Catherine Healy said Montgomery’s salacious comments to the women were outrageous and not at all typical of other brothel operators in New Zealand, where prostitution is legal.
Healy hailed the case because, she said, most sex workers were afraid to make waves about their treatment for fear they would be “outed” and humiliated because of the lingering stigma attached to the world’s oldest profession.
“His self-described role as ‘protector’ of the sex workers at the Kensington has led him to be overbearing and exploitative, thinking that his sex, size and management role have given him a license to do as he wishes and to behave as he likes,” the tribunal said in its decision.
Members said his behavior was a breach of the Human Rights Act, and awarded the woman $21,000 for “humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings,” The Herald reported.
The award, Healy said, was “a milestone’’ for the country’s sex industry.
“I think it certainly sends a really strong message that people working in brothels, that sex workers, have rights and can exercise them, and certainly they can challenge sexual harassment and sexual exploitation in the context of sex work,’’ she said. “And that’s got to be really good news.’’
The prostitute did not comment.