A MAN considered a danger to prostitutes has become the first in Bolton to be banned from the town's red light area.

Craig Daryll Grundy received an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) which stops him from entering the zone surrounding Shiffnall Street and other roads used by prostitutes at night.

The order was handed to Grundy, of Halton Street, The Haulgh, after he was found guilty of causing actual bodily harm to a 24-year-old prostitute in the town centre last year.

Police say the order could be the first of many given to pimps, kerb crawlers and those who harass vice girls.

The aim is to make the area safer following the deaths of two young prostitutes in recent years.

Supt Alan Greene said: "We're trying to make the red light area as safe a place as possible to work and this is one of the many measures that can be used to do that.

"We will not tolerate any harm, abuse or intimidation of any people who use the area at any time of night or day."

Police have relaxed their approach to policing the vice trade in the Shiffnall Street area to allow prostitutes to work more freely without fear of arrest.

Kerb crawlers, however, will still be breaking the law and face being stopped.

The designated zone is designed to keep prostitutes out of residential areas and allow police to monitor them and their clients.

The policy, which sees a curfew imposed on prostitutes between 6am and 7pm, is aimed at stopping violent attacks which have seen two vice girls killed in recent years.

Carly Bateman was strangled and dumped in The Haulgh in November 2001. The killer of pregnant Danielle Moorcroft, whose battered body was found in June 2002, is still at large.

Other streets Grundy will be banned from for two years are Hewlett Street, Breightmet Street, River Street, Saville Street, Salop Street, Carlton Street and Glebe Street.

If Grundy is caught flouting the ASBO, he faces arrest and a maximum five-year jail sentence. The order was handed to Grundy by a judge after he pleaded guilty to actual bodily harm last week.