CAREER women -- including a nursing home worker -- are walking the town's streets offering sex for sale, the BEN can reveal tonight.

A woman, who holds a senior post in a Bolton nursing home, is one of the working girls touting for business in the town's "red light" district.

And she is not alone. An Evening News investigation has highlighted the shocking depths to which salaried women are prepared to go to feed their drug addiction -- and even to boost their low wages.

In an exclusive interview with the BEN the nursing home worker, together with a younger woman who works part-time in a shop, revealed how their addiction to heroin drew them into the seedy sex business, to earn extra cash to buy drugs.

The BEN joined a Bolton Police prostitution patrol in the red light area and will report the problem of prostitution in the town in a series of articles over the next two nights.

The 31-year-old nursing home worker confirmed she first had sex for cash nine years ago.

She added: "I wasn't bothered about it at all when I first got involved. It's like being a secretary and typing a letter -- it's just business.

"When you are with a punter the last thing you think about is what is going on. You just want things to finish as quickly as possible." The woman -- who fears she would lose her nursing home job if identified -- returned to the town's "red light" district, after a gap of 18 months, following the birth of her second child last year.

She claims the money she earns as a prostitute now helps to supplement her monthly salary. She has now kicked her drug habit and is taking the heroin substitute, methadone.

The care worker added: "I have time off from it here and there. It all started off because of drugs. I had a heroin addiction which was costing me anything from £20 to £90 a day.

"Up until Christmas I had not been down here for 18 months. If I do three nights a week I don't have to come down here for another 10 days.

"My boyfriend knows what I'm doing and he hates it. He's slept on the settee since I came back down here."

And a Breightmet woman, who confirmed she had been a prostitute for five years, admitted she works as a part-time shop assistant.

The 25-year-old woman, who touts for business with her younger sister, again admitted she was another tragic victim of the town's drugs underworld

Asking not to be identified to protect her "day" job, she said: "If they knew what I did I would lose my job. It was a drug habit which got me involved in this. The punters make me sick.

"Me and my sister look out for each other. If one of us goes off with somebody we make a note of the car registration and we always go home together at the end of the night."

Women of all ages, from the teens to their mid 50s, nightly offer sex for sale in the Breightmet Street, Shiffnall Street and River Street areas -- Bolton's "red light" district -- on the fringe of the town centre.

TOMORROW: the BEN reveals the risks prostitutes are prepared to take to feed their addiction to drugs.