OXFORD’S “most prolific” prostitute has been banned from selling sex on the streets and in her home for five years.

Drug addict Nicola Harris worked seven days a week along Cowley Road, East Oxford, and Oxford Road, Cowley, as well as seeing clients at her home in Costar Close in Littlemore.

The 33-year-old, who had been subject to an interim Anti Social Behaviour Order since July 9, failed to turn up at Oxford Magistrates’ Court yesterday to hear the city council’s successful application for a full order.

Complaints from local residents began last winter, and Harris was cautioned twice in December and arrested for soliciting in March.

When out on the streets she would take men to Cowley Marsh Park and Agnes Court, off Oxford Road, where police and residents would frequently find used condoms, the court heard.

Pc Mike Dix told magistrates the mother-of-one lived a “very chaotic and complicated lifestyle” and would be out on the streets between about 9pm and 3am every night.

He said: “She would be walking down the street, openly looking around, often carrying a garment over her arm, which, I’m informed, is a sign to customers that she’s working.

“She rarely denied being a prostitute, but often said ‘prove it’ or ‘catch me in the act’.

“Offences of prostitution are quite complicated because it’s not actually illegal to have sex for money, although the soliciting side of it is, and that can often be hard to prove.

“She said even if she didn’t necessarily have a drug problem she would continue to solicit with her current customers because it’s a lifestyle choice and she will always need the money.”

Asked about prostitution, Pc Dix replied: “It’s definitely not just Nicola. She is perhaps the most prolific and well known – her and one other, and we are dealing with the other.”

Naeem Chudry, the council’s antisocial behaviour investigator, said: “I won’t go so far as to say this is Oxford’s red-light area. There are other sex workers in Oxford, a handful, and this is the main area in which they operate.”

Asked why Harris was specifically targeted, Pc Andrew Reid said: “There are probably about half a dozen other women in the area, but Nicola Harris is by far the most prolific.”

The court heard Harris lived with her drug-addict partner but her child was taken into care.

Chair of magistrates Stephen Eeley banned Harris from leaving her home between 9pm and 7am, selling sex at her home and going within a designated area around East Oxford and Cowley, except while travelling on a bus, until 2015.

Outside court, Saj Malik, the council’s board member for safer communities, said Harris would be given access to drug rehabilitation and advice on housing, money and family matters.