A GRASS-ROOTS group for sex workers’ rights has demanded Scottish cops call off a new door-knocking campaign, described as “raids in disguise.”

Glasgow-based pilot scheme Operation Lingle will see police arriving unannounced on people’s doorsteps for “welfare visits” following anonymous tip-offs from neighbours.

Detective Chief Inspector Ruth Gilfillan insisted the operation was “categorically not about criminalising sex workers.”

But a board member of grassroots group Scot-Pep speaking on condition of anonymity said police were singling out sex workers for persecution and intimidation.

Under current law trading sex for money is legal, but outlawed brothels are defined as a premises where two or more sex workers do business — spurring fears that off-street sex workers who shared a flat for safety’s sake could risk arrest as a result of the visits.

“The evidence is clear — the public want to see the laws changed to protect sex workers, not the imposition of this sort of punitive ‘raids in disguise’,” they said.