When the prosecution in the case I've been asked to be an expert witness declined at a very late stage to accept a whole host of things, including my status as someone who's an expert on male sex work, the person concerned suggested writing to a group of people in the field.

As ever, not everyone likes everyone else in this area, and even the main umbrella group has organisations with fundamentally different approaches and ethoses… so it's been quite amazing to see the comments come in and the various 'sets' be completed (like every significant organisation doing work with male sex workers in London and Manchester).

I was also hugely amused to have a chance to see some communication between the defence team – they were considering a number of people, in particular including someone with a PhD in the field who I have immense respect for. They collected statements from all of us, and the result was "I have to say that I far prefer the witness statement of Ian…"