Two men found guilty of placing explicit cards in Kensington and Chelsea phone boxes have been banned from entering public telephone boxes in the borough for five years.

Dariusz Sieron and Adrian Janiszewski of Warwick Road, SW5, were found guilty of possessing articles to cause criminal damage and of handling stolen goods.

The two were found with super glue and prostitute cards, as well as a stolen computer tablet.

Courts heard how the two men were arrested in November 2015 following an operation to tackle placing explicit cards in phone boxes in the borough by the Royal Borough’s Community Policing Team.

The pair pleaded not guilty to the charges, but were found guilty and sentenced at Westminster Magistrates' Court on March 15.

They were handed a five-year Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) which runs until March 14 2021 and ordered them to pay costs totalling £350 and 200 hours community service.

The CBO means that neither Sieron or Janiszewski cannot:

• enter any public telephone box in the Royal Borough, save to call 999 in a genuine emergency
• be in possession of any cards advertising sex work in England and Wales
• alert any person placing sex worker cards in a public place, to the presence of police or any Council officer
• ask or instruct any person to have in their possession a quantity of sex worker cards or place them in any public place
• approach, intimidate or threaten any person who is removing or has removed in the past few minutes, sex cards from any street furniture.

If either breach the CBO they could be arrested for contempt of court.

'Residents don't want this'

A council spokesman said: “Residents don’t want phone boxes in their area to be advertising hoardings for sexual services.

"We work closely with the police to tackle this sort of criminal behaviour and are very pleased that the court has taken action to stop these two individuals continuing this unwanted practice.”

Anyone who spots prostitute cards in a phone box should not remove the cards themselves but should let the council know by using the app RBKC Local, emailing streetline@rbkc.gov.uk or calling 020 7361 3001 or the police on 101.