RUNNING a prostitution racket at a bungalow in a Devon village has landed a builder behind bars.

A court heard that after the brothel in Newton Poppleford, near Sidmouth, was raided, Peter Colicott got involved in managing another one in Gloucestershire which also offered Far Eastern girls for sex.

Colicott, 44, of Harepath Road, Seaton, was jailed for a total of 15 months after he admitted keeping a brothel at Newton Poppleford and assisting in the management of a brothel in Cheltenham.

Prosecutor Lee Bremridge told Gloucester Crown Court yesterday that Colicott operated the Devon brothel from September 2005 until February 2007.

The brothel was initially at his home in the Exeter area and in September 2006 he moved it into a friend's unoccupied bungalow in Newton Poppleford in return for paying all the utility bills.

Colicott had an Oriental partner — a Thai woman who is now back in her home country — and the two of them operated the business together until police raided it after an undercover operation in early 2007.

Officers rang the advertised number inquiring about the services on offer and were told it would be £60 for half an hour and £100 for an hour, Mr Bremridge said.

A full hour "included everything," the caller was told.

Colicott answered the phone to one police caller and said he currently had a 23-year-old Thai lady available.

Mr Bremridge said that on February 22, 2007, a police officer posing as a customer went to the bungalow and met an Oriental woman called Nicky who said they had Thai, Chinese and Filipino girls from week to week.

"Services were offered and money changed hands but the officer then made his excuses and left," said the prosecutor.

The premises were raided later that day and police found diaries with notes of appointments, payments made and text messages making appointments on mobile phones.

Two girls were at the address at the time — one was Colicott's partner, who tried to escape through a window, and the other was a Thai girl hiding in a wardrobe.

She told police she had come to the UK to work as a prostitute of her own free will, having worked in a massage parlour in Bangkok.

Police found evidence that Colicott had sent £1,800 to Thailand by Western Union money transfers.

Colicott, who refused to make any comment to police, was bailed and then got involved in the Cheltenham brothel.

Mr Bremridge said Colicott accepted that last August he was assisting Xiao Chen, 39, of Tooting Road, London, in the management of the brothel.

Giles Nelson, for Colicott, said the bungalow in Newton Poppleford was so remote — half a mile from the nearest property — that the brothel operation caused no offence to anyone. The girls working there were all doing so of their own free will.

"I hesitate to use the expression but it was a very small cottage industry," said Mr Nelson.

Judge William Hart told Colicott: "Brothel keeping in Newton Poppleford is unlikely to be a particularly widespread evil — but it is a widespread evil in this country."