A concerned father forced to live near a suspected brothel for the past 18 months has told of his delight at a police operation to close it down.

Officers raided A127 Babes, in Prince Avenue, Westcliff, earlier this week and found a selection of sex toys, raunchy costumes and sexually explicit "menus" of services.

Police swooped on the house following a series of complaints from neighbours, including Kevin Harland, 40, who feared for the safety of his five-year-old daughter.

He became concerned when he looked on the internet and discovered men who visited A127 Babes enjoyed seeing women dressed up as schoolgirls.

Mr Harland said: "I don't want people who want girls to look like children turning up and perhaps accidentally knocking on my door when my daughter is there. There have been some awful looking blokes turning up.

"Their bedroom overlooks my back garden."

Mr Harland was also concerned when a notice was put up on the A127 Babes website on Wednesday night - the day after the raid - advising people it had reopened for business from 11am to 5pm on weekdays.

Yesterday (thurs) this was changed to: "The authorities are happy for us to continue as normal and to be tolerated as a clean, safe environment for self-employed girls, but to save any further embarrassment to neighbours we will be looking at moving premises."

PC Neil Gale, of the Eastwood neighbourhood policing team, had not received intelligence that A127 Babes had reopened for business and said he was certain the authorities were not happy for it to reopen.

He said: "If it does, we would certainly deal with it as quickly as possible."

A127 Babes' telephone has been diverted to an answerphone message.

A woman's voice says: "Hello, this is A127 Babes. Please look at our website and call us back another time."

*Two people arrested on suspicion of keeping a brothel have been released on police bail.

A man, aged 26, and a woman, aged 28, both from Westcliff, were arrested following a police raid on a suspected brothel, in Prince Avenue, Southend.

They have both been bailed until February 20.