I AM an academic currently undertaking a PhD examining the sex industry, and I'm interested in the Mr Magoo brothel prosecutions.

Mr Magoo's has operated for many years, so why now?

I find the wording of the police spokesperson problematic, claiming there were "vulnerable women who were being exploited".

I haven't heard from any of the women involved; we need to start to engage with sex workers instead of speaking for them and infantilizing them.

It is legal for a woman to sell sex from her own premises, but this obviously carries more risk of violence which is why illegal brothels exist.

Presumably the sex workers are now operating from different premises (perhaps less safe or in more precarious conditions) or are now working from the street.

Raids disperse workers, they don't "end" prostitution.

I am perplexed as to why local media outlets are luridly publishing photographs of inside the premises, "helpfully" showing us a microwave and a BDSM cross presumably so readers so feel morally superior.

Sex workers are part of our community, and instead of constructing moral panics perhaps we ought to have discussions about the feminization of poverty that creates the economic conditions for prostitution, and ask what we can do as a community to ensure the women and men who sell sex remain as safe as possible and have choices available to them.

Gemma Ahearne, Liverpool John Moores University.