Body Health Treatment next to Blackburn station shut down, declared a brothel
A massage parlour near Blackburn station was raided after authorities believed it was a brothel — and they were right. Nearby traders were not surprised, describing the suspicious activity they’d seen there over the years.
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An illegal brothel operating opposite a busy railway station in Melbourne’s east, advertised as a “professional massage centre”, has been shut down.
The business, Body Health Treatment, had been operating on Station Parade in Blackburn for years, and surrounding traders said they’d long had suspicions about it.
From the outside it had looked like a typical massage parlour, with window stickers and signs advertising reflexology, full body massage and cupping services seven days a week, from 10am to 8.30pm.
And with the shop located opposite the train station and on a shopping strip, another trader said clients hadn’t stood out when they headed to the brothel.
“You really would not know,” one trader said.
A coloured-in, hand drawn sign is still taped to the foyer’s counter, reading ‘non-sexual’.
A Station Parade business owner said she had wondered why “only men” in their 30s and 40s seemed to ever go into the shop and noticed the young Chinese female staff didn’t speak English.
She said when she recommended a friend with back problems try the massage parlour, he was turned away by staff saying they didn’t do half-body massages — only full body.
But the trader said she hadn’t thought of the possibility the business could be a brothel until plainclothes police officers entered her store asking about it in March.
She said as a massage-lover she would have tried the parlour herself, but she thought the premises “didn’t look hygienic”.
The woman said the business had been running for four to five years, and the manager — a Chinese woman in her 30s or 40s — was one of the few traders in Blackburn Station Village who didn’t have a good relationship with the others.
A magistrate ruled the business at 68C South Parade was a proscribed brothel under the Sex Work Act 1994 at Ringwood Magistrates’ Court on May 5.
The premises was declared to be a proscribed brothel for 12 months from March 26.
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A Victoria police spokeswoman, who refused to be named. said anyone “being in, entering or leaving” the venue “without a lawful purpose” during this period could be imprisoned for up to 12 months.
She said the conviction followed an investigation by the Sex Industry Co-ordination Unit.
“Police target suspected illegal brothels based on assessment of intelligence received,” she said.
“Anyone who has information or suspects they know of an illegal brothel is urged to phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report online at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.”
Another illegal brothel was shut down in November in Laburnum Village near Laburnum railway station.
Whitehorse Council was contacted for comment.