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The about-face by police – they didn’t name johns before, because many are ultimately dealt with in a way that leaves them with no criminal record – appears to make London a trailblazer, the rare example of a force that will now release to the media the names of suspects charged.

But for such a dramatic break with the past, there’s no shortage of disagreement over how it will unfold. Nor is it clear that other police forces across the country, or in Southwestern Ontario, are likely to follow London’s lead.

Megan Walker, executive director of the London Abused Women’s Centre (LAWC), had lobbied police for more than a decade to publicly release the names of accused johns, something only handful of Canadian police forces do.

Police long countered they withhold those names – even in human trafficking investigations – because, in the end, most such suspects avoid a criminal record by attending a diversion program to educate them about the pitfalls of the sex-trade industry.

After Walker says police denied her freedom-of-information request for the names of the men charged in Project Circuit, a six-week human-trafficking sting that led to charges against 25 johns in the fall, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“We felt the only way we could determine what kinds of men are purchasing sexual services was to go and look at the court dockets every day,” Walker said.

Fabienne Haller, who also works at Walker’s organization, was tasked with swinging by the London courthouse every morning to check the dockets. If someone appeared on a charge of communicating for the purpose of obtaining sexual services, then the agency would ask to view the information documents on the case.