It took less than 20 minutes for the Mongrel Mob to pluck sex worker Ngatai 'Mellory' Manning off the street before raping, bashing, and murdering her, the Crown alleges.

Murder accused Mauha Fawcett, who is conducting his own trial, has elected not to take the stand, after declaring 'his life is on the line'.

A sex worker has been awarded $25,000 compensation after being sexually harassed by a brothel operator.

A month after telling police he took part in the brutal murder of Christchurch prostitute Mellory Manning, Mongrel Mob prospect Mauha Fawcett backtracked on his story.

Murder victim Mellory Manning's DNA was found on a knife recovered just metres from where her body was dumped in a Christchurch river, a court heard today.

An extremely rare mutated grass pollen found on Mellory Manning's clothing matched samples taken from the Mongrel Mob gang pad where police say she was brutally murdered.

A witness who sold drugs to slain Christchurch sex worker Mellory Manning has described hearing a "blood-curdling" scream coming from the direction of a Mongrel Mob gang pad the night Mellory Manning was killed.

Ngatai 'Mellory' Manning was raped, bashed, and stabbed at a Mongrel Mob gang pad before her mutilated body was dumped in a river, a court has heard today.

The trial of a man charged with the murder of Christchurch prostitute Ngatai 'Mellory' Manning starts today.

Sex, politics and morality: Put the three together, and you are sure to end up with a steaming tub of trouble.

Rich lister and sex entrepreneur Ka Yu Chow, known as John Chow, has been granted diversion after a charge of threatening to injure was downgraded.

Epsom Girls Grammar is considering a fresh complaint to Auckland Council after a Herald report that brothels are operating in its immediate area.

Rich lister and sex entrepreneur John Chow has pleaded not guilty to threatening to injure another man.

Beau De Royce fears she could be forced to work on the streets if her sickness benefit is cut as part of a cull of welfare numbers.

The Government has dismissed parts of a high-level report which identified trafficking of underage prostitutes in New Zealand because it believed the findings were based on media reports which were not backed by police evidence.

The campaign to clean up Hunter's Corner has created some unlikely bedfellows.

All forms of prostitution were decriminalised in 2003. But while the Prostitution Reform Act gave local authorities power to regulate where brothels operated, there are no such controls on those selling their bodies on the street.

Central government politicians have called a roundtable meeting in Wellington tomorrow to look for ways to control street prostitution in South Auckland.

The trial of a man charged with the 2008 murder of Christchurch prostitute Mellory Manning is likely to start next year.

Migrant prostitutes here are not victims of people trafficking and many are in the sex trade for the money, research on migrant sex workers in New Zealand has found.

Police have denied there is a problem with underage prostitution, writes Dave Crampton. Perhaps this is because nobody has laid a complaint with the police?

The bars on Ponsonby Rd are pumping when I turn up at the Auckland office of the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective, behind an unassuming frosted-glass window at the western end of Karangahape Rd.