The father’s double life working as a pimp who runs the “escort agency” Pure Innocence

A father pocketed “substantial” sums of money by running Pure Innocence “escort agency”.

Ian Cullen has now been caught working as a pimp for the second time, having up to nine women under his control as part of the illegal business. The operation saw a pregnant woman he hired as a sex worker leave her “extremely anxious and distressed” at a Liverpool city center hotel after he also asked her to visit lorry drivers at roadside resorts main.

Liverpool Crown Court heard today, Monday, that police were called to the Ibis Hotel on Dale Street at around 8.45am on September 14, 2021 and found a woman waiting in an “extremely anxious and distressed state”. She went on to tell officers that she worked for an escort agency called ‘Pure Innocence’ and that Cullen, of Anglesea Road in Walton, was her ‘boss’.

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Philip Astbury, prosecuting, described how she was a sex worker before meeting the 45-year-old as a client before asking to work for him, with her first “job” coming at the Malmaison Hotel in 2017. She then resumed working for Cullen again in spring 2021, charging £150 an hour – £80 of which he would keep.

However, she was often not paid the remaining £70 she was owed, as he claimed she owed him debts relating to her previous time working for him and that he would “purely and simple with the debt”. The woman, who was “addicted to Class A drugs”, estimated that Cullen had around nine women working for him in total.

He would ask them to buy condoms from him at a five-for-£1 fee, while she was given a “driver called Ken” to take her to meet clients. Many of them were said to be lorry drivers, including being taken to meet one at his cab near East Lancs Road.

On the day in question, she told detectives she was instructed to meet a Romanian man who “insisted on playing a video of a gang rape”. Her driver left her alone and she then tried to leave, but became “suspicious” of a taxi that arrived to pick her up and eventually sought refuge with hotel staff.

Merseyside Police then went to Cullen’s home and found a black Nokia phone “hidden on the back of a sofa”. This phone “contained a series of messages consistent with” the woman’s account, with “requests for girls including details of their age and bust size”.

The number was also used to advertise the services of sex workers on websites including Viva Street, Secret Hostess and Escort 46. Cullen had four previous convictions for six offences, including receiving 14 months in prostitution control for I earn in 2016 using a business under the same name.

Gerald Baxter, defending, told the court: “The defendant committed this offense in 2021. His life has evolved, in a number of ways.

“He had no more problems. At the center of his life he seems to take care of his son.”

Cullen admitted controlling prostitution for profit and possession of cocaine in relation to a small quantity seized from his address on his arrest. He received a two-year prison sentence suspended for 18 months.

Judge Andrew Menary KC said: “You knew exactly what you were doing and what the risks were. There is no doubt that you were doing this for financial reasons.

“There was at least an element of exploitation. You didn’t force these women to do what they did, but I have no doubt you were exploiting them.

“This is a pretty miserable business for everyone involved, but you were the distance. You could enjoy substantial financial gains for doing very little.

“You have given various accounts suggesting that all you were doing was operating an escort service. It’s complete nonsense designed by you to minimize your involvement.

“You realized after you were caught that you were at serious risk of going back to prison. All this happened some time ago.

“There is no evidence that you have done anything similar since then. I am aware that you have a substantial responsibility for your youngest son.

“I have no doubt that you have been devoted to him and wish to protect his well-being. You must understand that your commitments and responsibilities to him are the only factor that convinced me not to send you to prison – that is, the only reason why you are not going to prison immediately today.’

Cullen will have to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to 20 days and a thinking skills programme, as well as a two-year restraining order. He replied, “Thank you my lord, thank you.”

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