Extreme Pornography News

Four men were found guilty of pirating porn DVDs after customers complained about the poor quality of the videos to Trading Standards. In addition to being recorded badly, they were also too short.

Fred Thompson, who formerly ran an unlicensed sex shop in Hull called Adult Erotica, ran the operation aided by Shaun Langley, Nigel Maw and his son David Maw. They distributed their products, under the name Fantasy Dome, via mail order and through the Internet.

The prosecutor claimed that viewers somehow benefit from censorship by the BBFC. Somehow neglecting to mention how many films are not available to view simply because it expensive BBFC fees are uneconomic for small distribution.

Prosecutor Charlene Sumnall said:

This is not a case about the morality of porn or adult entertainment. Whether you like it or not, there is a market for legitimate porn and thousands of customers use it every day. Those customers, like any others, deserve protection from being defrauded. Just like any other release, it has to go before the film board to see if it is lawful and OK to be sold.

A jury unanimously convicted the four men after a three-week trial. Judge Murk Bury of Hull Crown Court said that sentencing will be forthcoming and may very well include jail time.

Update: Suspended prison sentences

15th September 2013. See  article from  thisishullandeastriding.co.uk

The four men who ran a counterfeit porn DVD operation in Hull have been spared jail. The men, led by former sex shop owner Frederick Thompson, were given suspended prison sentences for their involvement in the operation.

The group copied and distributed tens of thousands of pornographic pirate DVDs.

The operation was not particularly lucrative and taxpayers will have to foot the £54,000 bill for prosecuting the group because none of them can afford to pay towards the costs.

All four were convicted of conspiracy to make, distribute and defraud customers. Shaun  Langley and both Nigel and David Maw were also convicted of possessing extreme pornographic images.

The court heard they were planning to launch a new side of the business, the Extreme shop, and had produced 10,000 flyers which were about to be sent to customers.

Fred  Thompson and Nigel Maw were both sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years. Langley was given a 12-month jail term suspended for two years, while David Maw was sentenced to a six-month prison sentence, also suspended for two years.

Three men who hired porn stars and sex workers for a series of sex parties have been convicted but thankfully spared jail.

Patrick Stewart, Russell Staddon, and Shahid Latif, hosted fun parties featuring a bondage area, a porn room, and double beds to watch each other have sex and swap partners. The orgies - advertised as gentlemen's parties - were held in Fairfield Road, Bow, and at a unit called Fun Times in Queen's Yard, Hackney Wick.

The party goers enjoyed sex with South American and eastern European women, who were paid around £ 150 for four hours work. The fun was ruined by miserable undercover police raided both addresses in September 2012.

Judge David Higgins described the orgies as deplorable , but said his sentence reflected the fact that the women were more than ready to participate.

Staddon also fell victim to the Dangerous Pictures Act after police found 28 extreme pornographic images, including two DVDs, showing women having sex with dogs.

Stewart was handed a 14-month sentence, suspended for two years, and will complete 200 hours unpaid work and pay £ 750 costs.

Staddon got 10 months, suspended for two years, and will complete 150 hours unpaid work and pay £ 250 costs.

Latif received a four-month sentence, suspended for two years, and must pay £ 75 and complete 80 hours unpaid work.

All three admitted conspiracy to control prostitution for gain and money laundering (nothing sinister, it just means spending the money gained from the business), and Staddon also admitted possessing extreme pornography.

Daily Mail Dave is facing criticisms and serious questions over how his plan for automatic internet porn filters in every British home would work.

The former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP), Jim Gamble, said Cameron's plan to tackle child abuse images by removing results from search engines like Google would be laughed at by paedophiles:

There are 50,000 predators...downloading abusive images on peer-to-peer, not from Google. Yet from CEOP intelligence only 192 were arrested last year. That's simply not good enough.

We've got to attack the root cause, invest with new money, real investment in child protection teams, victim support and policing on the ground. Let's create a real deterrent. Not a pop-up that paedophiles will laugh at.

In interviews after his speech, Cameron seemed unclear of exactly which legal sites should be banned by the new filters - and accepted that the technology still had weaknesses. Speaking on the BBC's Jeremy Vine programme, Cameron said what would be included in the filters would evolve over time:

The companies themselves are going to design what is automatically blocked, but the assumption is they will start with blocking pornographic sites and also perhaps self-harming sites

It will depend on how the companies choose how to do it. It doesn't mean, for instance, it will block access to a newspaper like The Sun, it wouldn't block that - but it would block pornography.

Cameron said he did not believe written pornography, such as erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, would be blocked under the plans. But he added: It will depend on how the filters work.

He also admitted it could lead to some interesting conversations in families. Asked if the opt in system meant a husband would have to fess up to his partner if he wanted to look at porn, he finally said: Yes, it does. He then added:

I'm not saying we've thought of everything and there will be many problems down the line as we deal with this, but we're trying to crunch through these problems and work out what you can do and can't do.

Cameron was even attacked by one of his former female MPs, Louise Mensch, for attempting to ban video containing rape simulation. She suggested such fantasies were common in more than half of all women. She wrote on Twitter:

It is not for our government to police consensual simulation, between adults, of one of women's most common fantasies,

Padraig Reidy, of the Index on Censorship, said people should not have to opt out of the filters:

If we have, as the Prime Minister is suggesting, an opt-out filter we have a kind of default censorship in place.

Families should be able to choose if they want to opt in to censorship. If a filter is set up as a default then it can really restrict what people can see legitimately. Sites about sexual health, about sexuality and so on, will get caught up in the same filters as pornography. It will really restrict people's experience on the web, including children's.

Dr Paul Bernal, from the University of East Anglia's law school, suggested Cameron's crackdown on child abuse images was also inadequate:

Plans like these, worthy though they may appear, do not, to me, seem likely to be in any way effective. The real 'bad guys' will find ways around them, the material will still exist, will keep being created, and we'll pretend to have solved the problem -- and at the same time put in a structure to allow censorship, create a deeply vulnerable database of 'untrustworthy people', and potentially alienate many of the most important companies on the internet. I'm not convinced it's a good idea.

Daily Mail spokesman David Cameron is set to announce that the Dangerous Pictures Act will be extended to cover the glorified depiction of rape and other serious sexual offences.

In a speech on Monday, David Cameron will also laud agreements between the Government and internet firms to restrict access to pornography online to those opting to see certain sites and to introduce new censorship requirement for public Wi-Fi connections.

The Government hopes that such actions will convince Daily Mail readers that it is taking action.

Internet firms have also called for tougher legal safeguards on pornography if ministers want to police the web, as the companies do not believe they should be held responsible for deciding what content should be restricted.

The Telegraph has obtained a letter to campaign organisation Rape Crisis South London from Damian Green, the Policing Minister, in which he said the Coalition is actively considering amending legislation on so-called rape pornography .

In his letter Green said: The Government is now actively considering the serious matters [raised by campaigners] including amending the existing criminal law.

Russia's internet censors, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications has banned Japanese anime from the genre hentai . Censors claim it to be child pornography.

The censor department was not sure whether to define hentai as child pornography and so consulted external analysts. One such analyst claimed that these animated films exploit interest to sex often in perverted form , as well as there is no storyline and any cultural or historical value . Also according to experts all characters are presented as minors, who participate in pornographic scenes .

The internet censor will now demand that websites and web hosting companies remove all such content.

Hentai is a genre of the Japanese animation (anime) containing erotic or pornographic scenes. Characters are typically drawn with few features and rather indeterminate ages.

Comment: Churnalism

2nd July 2013. Thanks to Alan

What a strange, half-hearted anti-censorship piece by Nick Cohen!

Whyever should we hate porn ? Is Cohen the only man on the planet never to have enjoyed a wank?

While he reaches the right, anti-censorship conclusion, Cohen really engages in churnalism , rehashing pro-censorship facts that are at best questionable. Most obviously, the making of rape movies in Britain is not itself illegal. The censorship issues arise around the unwillingness of the BBFC to pass pornographic representations of rape, and the consequent ilegality of selling them because of the VRA 1984, and possibly with the OPA 1959. In citing figures for the massive number of prosecutions under the Dangerous Pictures Act, Cohen doesn't seem to have had the intellectual curiosity to look at the debate around its introduction and the anticipated thirty prosecutions a year. Nor does he seem to have registered the widely reported recent case (covered in his own paper) of a gay man persecuted under this women-protecting legislation.

The Moral Maze on Radio 4 last night debated porn on the internet.

The BBC described the programme as:

Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk.

With panel:

• Claire Fox,
• Melanie Phillips,
• Matthew Taylor
• Giles Fraser.

Guest witnesses:

• Jerry Barnett - Former Chairman of the Adult Industry Trade Association
• Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of Mothers' Union
• Myles Jackman - Solicitor. Sexual freedom and obscenity specialist
• Eleanor Mills - Sunday Times campaigning reporter.

Definitely worth a listen, with debating moving into areas not generally covered by the shrill Daily Mail style debates.

Offsite Comment: Is the rape porn cultural harm argument another rape myth?

See  article from  obscenitylawyer.blogspot.co.uk

Contributor Myles Jackman has put together an interesting website article analysing the calls to ban simulated rape in porn.

Offsite Comment: Acquitted

22nd June 2013. See  article from  backlash-uk.org.uk

Laurie Penny  identifies  the connection between fantasies and consensual adult pornography:  

"I do not want to live in a world where the government and a select few conservative feminists get to decide what we may and may not masturbate to, and use the bodies of murdered women or children as emotional pawns in that debate."

...Read the full article

More than a hundred gender extremist groups and campaigners have written to the prime minister urging him to make it a criminal offence to possess pornography depicting rape.

They claim that such material glorifies, trivialises and normalises the abuse of women and girls, and note that both Mark Bridger and Stuart Hazell viewed violent and misogynistic pornography .

Possession of such material is already an offence in Scotland and could be similarly outlawed in England and Wales if the government extended clauses of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, they claim.

Fiona Elvines, a Rape Crisis South London campaigner, claimed:

Permitting the possession of depictions of sexual violence as entertainment glorifies, trivialises and normalises such abuse at a time when government statistics estimate that 85,000 women and girls are raped each year

Professor Clare McGlynn, a campaigner working at Durham University's law school, met Ministry of Justice officials in November to press for the law to be extended. However, her call was not heeded by the ministry, which told her the legal change was not appropriate or necessary .

A government spokesperson said:

Rape is an abhorrent crime and that is why this government has driven forward significant progress in tackling violence against women and girls. We share the public's concern about the availability of harmful content on the internet and have already taken steps to ensure there are better online filters to protect children . But we want to look at what more can be done and so the culture secretary has invited internet providers to a summit this month. We will look closely at the issues raised in this letter.

Dave Pearson, from the justice ministry's criminal policy unit, said that there is:

No evidence to show that the creation of staged rape images involves any harm to the participants or causes harm to society at large.

Pearson said that the ministry had asked the Internet Watch Foundation to investigate websites that depict or purport to depict actual rapes . The ministry said it was satisfied that the Internet Watch Foundation had checked a selection of the hundreds of thousands of videos available online and believed all the content they examined to be staged .

Comment: Evidence-free academia

8th June 2013. Thanks to Alan

Is Professor Clare McGlynn the invention of a satirical genius? She appears to be a self-parody of a victim feminist . I don't have the Guardian in front of me as I write, but if I remember correctly she insouciantly, if periphrastically, admits there's no evidence to link rape porn with actual rape. (In fact, the Japanese example - rape fantasy prominent in mainstream porn, compliant with mosaic requirement, and a very low rate of rape - suggests the opposite.)

What sort of academic demands that people be flung in jail with no evidential basis to show their actions are harmful? (Note - PEOPLE, not just men. If Prof McGlynn gets her way, I await with lively interest the first prosecution of a woman, especially if the rape porn is lesbian.)

What sort of academic whinges when a refereed journal is established to take a less biased look at porn because the editorial board isn't made up of anti-porners?

The message of the Dangerous Pictures Act so far is to be careful what you wish for. During its passage, the silence from gay men was deafening. What had they to fear from legislation to protect women from straight male fantasies? They certainly didn't want to be associated with animal porn (even if until recently the most serious crime with which they could be charged, buggery, also included bestiality). Then the boys in blue arrest a prominent gay figure, an aide to Boris Johnson, over a flick with a bit of fisting.

Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has a supermajority in the lower chamber of the National Diet has formed an alliance with minority parties the New Komeito Party and the Japanese Restoration Party, and together, they have proposed a law that would criminalize possession of sexual images of individuals under 18, according to the Japan Daily Press.

The proposed law doesn't distinguish between sexual images of actual children and  drawn images that can be found all over Japan in the form of animated short features ( anime ) and sexy comic strips in book and magazine form ( manga ).

If the proposed law passes, and the proposing bloc have enough votes to force it through regardless of opposition, then Japanese citizens possessing sexy anime will face fines of Yen1,000,000 (US$10,437) per offense... and if the person has been found to possess the material for the purpose of satisfying sexual curiosity, add a sentence of up to one year in prison for that enhancement.

The bill's sponsors hope to have the law in place by the time the current legislative session ends on June 26.

Gender extremists seem to be targeting an extension the Dangerous Pictures Act to include images of simulated rape (as per the Scottish version). Interesting when discussing the concept of 'educating' children about pornography it is taken as read that the 'education' will be moralising propaganda against porn. It never seems to be discussed what such 'education' should entail.

Responding to the publication of a new report by the Office of the Children's Commissioner on young people and pornography, Holly Dustin, Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition & Fiona Elvines of Rape Crisis South London said:

There should be concern at the highest levels of government that boys are accessing violent and sadistic pornography, and that it is influencing their behaviour and attitudes. Sexual violence towards women and girls is rarely out of the headlines and we know from our own research that sexual harassment and unwanted sexual touching is commonplace amongst young people. This does not happen in a vacuum, rather our sexist culture and media provides a conducive context for abuse to occur.

This report provides further strong evidence of the need for schools to be required to teach young people about sexual consent, and how to deal with pornographic and violent imagery they see online, in music videos, adverts or elsewhere.

Furthermore, we believe that the government must look at legislation on extreme pornography and close a loophole that allows the lawful possession of simulated images of rape pornography, similar to that viewed by Stuart Hazell.

Five years on from passing the Dangerous Pictures Act, a seminar was arranged at Durham University to discuss how the law is panning out.

One of the papers below reveals some stats on the number of prosecutions that have resulted:

Breakdown of cases reaching hearing by category of extreme pornography (2008 -- November 2011)

Type of extreme pornography	Number of cases	Percentage
Life threatening injury	65	2.91%
Serious injury	245	10.96%
Necrophilia	4	0.18%
Bestiality	1922	85.95%
Total	2236

Most of the cases have risen from police searches of computers and phones when people get arrested. Dangerous Pictures have proved useful to the authorities to add to the shopping list of charges for which the police were originally interested. In some cases the original investigations led to no further police action, but the detection of dangerous pictures has given the authorities something to persecute these people for anyway.

The prevalence of bestiality is probably because it is relatively common and is very straightforward for prosecution as it is nearly incontestable. Pornography involving injury is much less common and inevitably not realistic so it  is not so straightforward to prosecute.

The authorities have inevitably tried to stretch definitions by trying to claim unlikely injuries from eg gasmasks or fisting. One suspects that they have gotten away with cases where dangerous pictures charges have been coupled with more serious charges such as child porn. The extreme porn aspect is then probably irrelevant to the final sentence so simply isn't worth contesting the limits of the extremities.

Here is a paper from gender extremists who seem to reckon that all porn harms our very culture so should all be considered as harmful and open to prosecution as extreme pornography.

The Extreme Pornography Provisions: A Misunderstood and Misused Law

See  article from  inherentlyhuman.wordpress.com By Erika Rackley and Clare McGlynn (Durham University)

Initially, it was an encouraging move by the then Labour Government. At least at the time of the original proposals, the accompanying concern over the proliferation and effect of some forms of pornography in sexualising violence against women provided grounds for a cautious welcome of the measures. The Government appeared keen to emphasise that extreme pornography may contribute to a cultural context in which violent sexual activity is encouraged or legitimated, what we have referred to elsewhere as a form of cultural harm (see here and here).

By the time the new measures were adopted in the CJIA, however, the focused had shifted -- to the detriment of the law. The Government had become bewitched and distracted by arguments demanding -- and apparently finding -- evidence of physical harm and direct, causal links. Before ultimately retreating to the weakest possible justification for action: disgust.

...Read the full article

And alternative view coming from the angle that 'extreme' is a little too close to 'diverse' and that the lawmakers are jumping to unproven conclusions that its influence is worth pursuing in law.

The question of regulating pornography: is criminalisation the answer?

 See  article from  inherentlyhuman.wordpress.com

The current law seems to accept as read that the viewer is incapable of a reflexive response to pornography, that their responses are not already preconditioned by the particular attitudes to sex and violence shored up by other media and society at large, and that it is the extreme pornographic image itself that has the power to reconstruct what might otherwise be a healthy sexuality.

 

 

 

...Read the full article

The Crown Prosecution Service has updated its guidelines for Extreme Pornography under the Dangerous Pictures Act.

This seems to be a response to the disgraceful, and thankfully failed, persecution of Simon Walsh over a few images of gay anal fisting.

One of the several types of images supposedly considered as extreme is now described as follows:

An act which results in or is likely to result in serious injury to a person's anus, breast or genitals; this could include the insertion of sharp objects (although in some circumstances this can be done in a way that is not likely to result in serious injury) or the mutilation of breasts or genitals. It is likely to be difficult to prove that cases of fisting involve images that show activity that is likely to result in serious injury so these cases need to be handled with particular care. Serious injury is not defined in the Act and should be given its ordinary dictionary meaning, being a question of fact for the District Judge or jury.

So it seems that fisting is no longer normally considered extreme.

The CPS also seem to be advising plenty of caution about prosecutions that may follow similar lines to that of Simon Walsh.

"Serious Injury"

Having regard to the Article 8 right to a private life, and the requirement for any interference with that right to be proportionate and necessary, the threshold for prosecuting section 63(7)(b) cases should be a high one. It should be clear It will generally not be in the public interest to prosecute serious injury cases unless there is some aggravating factor present.

When assessing whether there are aggravating factors present when considering the public interest in prosecuting, consideration should be given to:

• The extent of the circulation of the images, for example whether they were shared between consenting parties or posted more widely, for example on social networking sites.

• Whether there is clear and credible evidence of the exploitation of those depicted in the images.

• The number of images involved - it is less likely to be in the public interest if there is a very small number of images involved.

• Any previous behaviour or conduct that may amount to relevant bad character evidence.

In view of the balancing act that section 63(7) (b) cases involve, decisions (either to prosecute or not to prosecute) specifically relating to serious injury should be approved at Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor (DCCP) level.

When considering such cases, the following should be considered:

• There has to be a likelihood of serious injury - this is more than just a risk .

• The type and severity of the injury likely to be inflicted should be obvious on looking at the image and expert evidence on the subject should not ordinarily be necessary.

• In exceptional cases where expert evidence is required, caution should be exercised when there are contrasting views from reliable experts, although the views of defence experts need to be considered in context.

• If other offences (including those under section 63(7) (a), (c) and (d)) have been committed and can be proved, it is preferable to focus on these rather than any section 63(7) (b) offence.

Update: Police Censors

14th May 2013. Thanks to Sergio

Sergio emailed the BBFC to inquire whether BBFC censorship policy will change in response to CPS comments effectively stating that fisting is not now considered to be 'extreme'.

The BBFC replied that the censorship of fisting will continue on CPS orders:

The guidance you have quoted from relates to the offence of possession of extreme pornography under the terms of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.

However, the BBFC does not cut images of this particular practice on those grounds. We cut such images from sex works, and did so long before the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act was introduced, on the basis of potential obscenity.

Current advice from the relevant enforcement agencies suggests that sex works containing images of this practice remain likely to be considered obscene under the terms of the Obscene Publications Act. '

A conference took place last week titled 'Criminalising Extreme Pornography: 5 Years On' at Durham University this last week.

It brought together academics, activists, policy-makers and other regulatory authorities to evaluate the success or failure of the legislation and to asked what, if any, reforms are necessary to secure progress toward this objective.

Speakers included:

• Simon Walsh  (barrister and alderman of the City of London)
• Fiona Elvines  (Rape Crisis, South London)
• Holly Dustin  (End Violence Against Women Coalition)
• Alex Dymock  (University of Reading)
• Clare McGlynn  and  Erika Rackley  (Durham Law School)
• Hildur Fjóla Antonsdóttir  (Centre for Women's and Gender Research, University of Iceland)

The event was covered by live tweets and Chris has kindly organised this record into a surprisingly useful format.

See twitter report from storify.com

A man found with extreme pornographic images explained to a court he had them just for fun .

David Higman admitted possessing 191 pornographic images after police raided his home in August 2011. Investigators later found 182 images on a laptop and 9 videos on an iPhone.

James Hartson, for Higman, said his client was unaware the images were illegal and that they were for his amusement and not sexual gratification.

He has had the matter hanging over him for some 18 months and it's caused much stress to him and his family as well as a source of acute personal embarrassment. This experience has left him with no desire to use computers for a long time.

Judge Keith Thomas said:

Most right-minded people think this sort of images portray unpleasant and disturbing things and they do involve the exploitation of often vulnerable women. For these reasons the courts take a serious view of them.

But he said he would not jail Higman and imposed a three-year community order including supervision. He also has to pay £ 300 in costs.

Campaigner Liz Longhurst has said she is disappointed that the Dangerous Pictures Act banning extreme porn has not been implemented as well as it could have been.

Longhurst, who campaigner alongside former Brighton Kemptown MP David Lepper for the law, part of the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, to be implemented, spoke on the tenth anniversary of her daughter Jane's death.

She wanted watching extreme porn to be outlawed because her daughter Jane's killer, Graham Coutts, looked at such pornographic images before killing her.

Woefully uninformed, Longhurst said:

I am very disappointed that the law has not been used more.

As far as I am aware it has only been used on a handful of occasions.

However, I am very glad there is such a law, even if I am disappointed it is not used as often as it could be.

In fact the Dangerous Pictures Act has been used countless times. It is used by police to persecute those being investigated on other charges who have had to submit their computers for police search. It is also used to add to the charge list for those prosecuted on more serious charges.

However Longhurst is right in one respect, it has been used very few times for the purpose that it was originally envisaged by Longhurst and co.

A former presenter on Chinese TV has been jailed for a year for having more than 800 extreme porn videos, including footage of women being tortured, presumably BDSM videos.

Sen Luo had more than 800 video images on his laptop and hard drives, which also included bestiality. Police found the porn while conducting the usual computer scan on an unrelated fraud inquiry.

Luo was convicted at the Old Bailey last month of possessing extreme pornography. Jurors found him guilty of two counts of possessing the videos by a majority of 11-1.

Another victim of the Dangerous Pictures has been acquitted of possessing an extreme pornographic image.

Stefan Haugk was acquitted after the Crown offered no evidence at Worcester Crown Court.

Persecutor Paul Whitfield said the image was discovered in connection with previous offences. But he said it was possible the image had appeared on a computer without being searched for, and there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.

Judge Michael Cullum ordered a not guilty verdict, so avoiding a jury trial scheduled for January 14.

A serviing policeman has appeared in court accused of having two explicit animal porn short videos clips on a mobile phone.

PC Gareth Roscoe denies possessing the bestiality video clips, one with a horse, the other with a dog. The prosecution, authorised by the Director of Public Prosecutions Kier Starmer, allege that Roscoe had the videos stored on a mobile phone.

A jury of seven women and five men were yesterday shown the videos, each about one minute long, at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester.

The court heard that the videos were discovered by police when they raided PC Roscoe's house. Rob Hall, prosecuting, said the search was carried out in connection with an unrelated matter which was later dropped. The phone was found to contain the two videos clips, along with 106 legal pornographic images and 55 non-pornographic images.

PC Roscoe has pleaded not guilty to two counts of possessing extreme pornographic images.

Update: Thankfully Acquitted

5th January 2013. See  article from  lep.co.uk

PC Gareth Roscoe has been cleared of possessing two explicit animal porn videos,  but could still face an internal police inquiry.

Roscoe, 26, denied two counts of possessing extreme pornographic images, which were short video clips involving a dog and a horse engaged in sexual activity with humans.

He was found not guilty at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, after a two-day trial. The jury of seven women and five men returned a not guilty verdict after deliberating for around 25 minutes.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said:

Greater Manchester Police notes the findings from court. GMP's Professional Standards Branch will now consider all matters relevant to this case and will determine whether or not any misconduct proceedings should be pursued.

Comment: Why all these persecutions of otherwise law abiding people?

5th January 2013. From the Melon Farmers

Why is it that the authorities are so keen to persecute ordinary, generally law abiding, people for trivia? They are doing more damage to people's lives than most of the criminals that they are supposed to be protecting us from. The law even requires that prosecutions are authorised by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Why did Kier Starmer approve this particular prosecution?

All the police could find after an thorough computer and phone search were a couple of jokey porn clips on an old phone. It surely doesn't demonstrate any particular interest in bestiality, and probably demonstrates the complete opposite, a near total lack of real interest.

And surely short video clips fail at the first hurdle of the law anyway.

1) It is an offence for a person to be in possession of an extreme pornographic image.

(2) An extreme pornographic image is an image which is both---

(a) pornographic, and (b) an extreme image.

(3) An image is pornographic if it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.

A one minute clip on a tiny phone screen is hardly likely to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal. It is far more likely that it was produced for amusement as a bad taste joke!