Sex worker invokes European human rights law to fight ban on prostitution

A sex worker is using European human rights legislation to try to overturn a new law in Northern Ireland that makes it illegal to pay for prostitutes.

Dublin-born law graduate Laura Lee is launching an unprecedented legal challenge, which could go all the way to Strasbourg, against a human trafficking bill that includes banning the payment for sex among consenting adults.

The region is the only part of the UK where men can be convicted of paying for sex. The law, which was championed by Democratic Unionist peer and Northern Ireland assembly member Lord Morrow, comes into effect on June 1.

Lee said she would launch her case at the high court in Belfast in the same month as the law comes into effect.

The justice minister, David Ford, has already warned that the Police Service of Northern Ireland may not be able to convict men contacting prostitutes for sex because intercept evidence from clients' mobile phones would be inadmissible.

"I am doing this because I believe that when two consenting adults have sex behind closed doors and if money changes hands then that is none of the state's business," Lee, 37, said.