Brothel manager Cheng Li pleads guilty to receiving payment for sexual services provided by a child

A 16-year-old girl living under the state’s care was hired to be a dominatrix and “fetish pleaser” at a Heidelberg brothel.

A 16 year-old girl was hired to be a dominatrix and “fetish pleaser” at a Heidelberg brothel. Picture: iStock

A child living under the state’s care was picked up in Ubers to work at a Heidelberg brothel as a dominatrix, a court has heard.

The girl, 16, left residential care four nights in a row to work as an assistant dominatrix and “fetish pleaser” at Heidelberg Angels, in 2019.

Brothel manager, Cheng Li, faces jail after pleading guilty to receiving payment for sexual services provided by a child.

The 35-year-old admitted in the County Court that he knew the girl was underage when she worked at the licenced brothel, which was owned by his mother.

The court heard that the girl clicked on a Facebook advertisement for an assistant dominatrix job and received a message from a recruiter called ‘Mike’ within 30 seconds.

After sending him a blurry photo of her identification – a learner’s permit with her birthdate altered in white-out and permanent marker – he took her on a tour to another brothel, Main Course in West Melbourne.

Months later, the girl would text Mike in the evenings to say if she could work, and he’d send an Uber to pick her up from her residential care unit, managed by the Department of Human Services, and drive her to Heidelberg Angels.

The girl left residential care four nights in a row to work as an assistant dominatrix and “fetish pleaser”. Picture: iStock

She later told police she wasn’t interviewed for the job, nor was she required to fill in any paperwork.

“It was just sort of, ‘Great, you’re willing to work. In you go,” she told officers.

The court heard that the child, while under the state’s care, would use whips or other toys on clients, and had sex with men on five occasions.

Police launched an investigation after receiving a tip-off to the Sex Industry Coordination Unit, seizing CCTV that showed the girl at the brothel on four consecutive evenings, from Tuesday to Friday, arriving as early at 6.46pm.

Mike, who the court heard “does this regularly”, hasn’t been found and was “a difficult fish to catch”.

But Li was interviewed and told police he checked IDs and visas to confirm workers’ ages before they were hired, but that it was “hard to remember” the girl.

In court on Wednesday, defence barrister Dr Theo Alexander conceded his client “met her and didn’t believe she had yet reached 18” and “clearly didn’t” check her ID to confirm her age.

In a victim impact statement, the girl said she had flashbacks about the crime and “the events still haunt me”.

“I find it very difficult to take care of myself, I no longer want to shower as I’m too scared to be naked and I feel as though my body is not my own, that it no longer belongs to me,” she said.

“Every aspect” of her life ad been affected: “I feel hopeless about my future, I just feel that I have no purpose.”

Barrister Carmela Pezzimenti, for the prosecution, called for Li to be jailed, with the crime carrying a maximum 15 years in prison.

But Dr Alexander submitted that the father-of-two, with no criminal history, could be dealt with through a community corrections order.

Judge Angela Ellis confirmed jail was a “real option” for Li.

Her Honour sent a stern warning to managers in the sex industry, stating it was incumbent on them to ensure they “do not have vulnerable children working for them” or they could be sent behind bars.

“He’s turned a blind eye to it, one might say deliberately, so he doesn’t need to trouble himself with the issues of having an underage child … working for him,” Judge Ellis said.

Dr Alexander replied that, “this is not a predatorial man, this is not a danger to the community, he made a mistake”.

Li will face a mandatory eight years on the sex offender registry.

He will return to the County Court for a further plea hearing on September 21.