UK Legal News

A Bradford court has sentenced a victim of the Dangerous Pictures Act to a 12 month community order. The man was prosecuted for possessing 3 jokey animal porn pics on his phone.

The illegal pictures were of a woman engaged in sexual activity with a horse and a semi-naked woman photographed with a dog. The Bradford man said he had thought the images were of some amusement.

He was sentenced to a 12 month community order, with 100 hours unpaid work, and a 15 day activity requirement with the probation service. His phone was also ordered to be destroyed.

A Special Constable serving in Barnet was found guilty last month of possession of extreme pornography. David Baddiel was sentenced to a 12-month conditional discharge with a fine of £700 in costs and a victim surcharge following his trial at Harrow Crown Court.

The jury found Baddiel guilty of possessing the three images on his phone, contrary to s.63(1) of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. He was found not guilty of the three identical images on his computer.

Baddiel remains suspended from police work and will be subject to a misconduct review

The images were photos of women performing sex acts with a horse. Baddiel said that the material had been sent by a WhatsApp messaging group to his mobile but he had deleted it when he spotted it. He said that he had been unaware that the images were on his computer. He told the jury at Harrow Crown Court that the WhatsApp group exchanged humorous material. It was a joke group for people to post jokes.

A man who possessed extreme pornography showing torture of women and sex involving animals has been ordered to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work.

Craig Freshwater was also made subject of a 12 month community order after earlier admitting three offences of possessing extreme pornography on his iPhone.

Freshwater was told by Judge Anthony Goldstaub at Chelmsford Crown Court how:

someone, somewhere, in the world, would have been hurt by the evil torture depicted. He said that both types of offences were morally corrupting.

You were sent the images by somebody who thought they were amusing or would satisfy curiosity, there was no commercial involvement.

At a previous hearing the offences were claimed to have portrayed in an explicit and realistic way an act which was grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character.

A man who exchanged extreme pornography with friends for amusement found himself in court as a  victim of the Dangerous Pictures Act.

Roberto Isella, was arrested after he was caught with the illegal movies, featuring bestiality, on his mobile phone. Leicester Crown Court was told he was unaware he had broken the law.

Isella pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing extreme pornography, relating to 24 video clips and one still image, in December 2013. He was sentenced to a two-year community order with 200 hours of unpaid work.

Judge Simon Hammond moralised:

None of the images concerned children, but one should never minimise the disgust at seeing activities with animals.

How anyone could derive amusement from it is very difficult to understand.

I accept it wasn't done for sexual gratification but out of misguided amusement.

It's not amusing; it was disgusting.

People must understand they have these sort of images prison sentences could follow.

Comment: This prosecution is a disgrace

7th September 2015. Thanks to Alan

Sadly, yet another victim rolls over with a guilty plea.

As I get older, I become more and more baffled by the attitude of the state to sex, and never more so than with the good old offence of buggery.

I'm an old-fashioned liberal, I suppose, and think that the state should butt out of sexual morality, apart from the obvious crime of rape (sensibly defined) and a rational age of consent, with close in age protection against prosecution for youngsters making early sexual experiments.

Now, where buggery's concerned, the state has decriminalised the bit regarding intercourse per anum with human beings. In fact, you frequently report censorship of Christian and Muslim activists who preach that sodomy is a sin, or doubt that two people of the same sex can marry one another.

But the other aspect of the old offence of buggery, nookie with our four-legged friends, has become a big no-no, with even possession of pictures or videos criminalised. Back in the 70's, I was briefly a member of that archetypally middle-class, benevolent but fun-loving organization, Round Table. I remember a guy bringing along a pack of mucky playing cards, in which the jokers showed a woman being shagged by a horse. Result: slightly embarrassed laughter and one or two off-colour quips. This prosecution is a disgrace, and the judge makes himself look like a humourless dipstick.

A student studying animal management built up a library of illegal pictures depicting humans and animals having sex, a judge heard.

The student admitted possessing 284 images classed in law as being extreme pornography.

Swansea crown court heard how police found the images on his laptop.

The student was jailed for 16 weeks, suspended for a year. He was also placed under supervision for 12 months and ordered to complete a one-to-one course to help him understand the 'harm' that was caused in the creation of the images. (presumably the twisted definition whereby making a personal copy is vindictively conflated with the act of photographing or directing the original image).

A man who downloaded extreme porn featuring animals foolishly handed himself into police after falling victim to a computer scam.

Victor Noble fell victim to computer hackers impersonating police who remotely locked his computer and demands a fee for it to be unlocked. The scammers blanked the screen and put in place an image supposedly referring to a police force, suggesting the user had been visiting illegal sites and that he should pay a fee for his computer to be unlocked.

Noble foolishly paid the £100 requested but the computer stayed locked. He then stupidly decided to go to the police. About 600 images of an extreme pornographic nature were discovered.

Noble admitted five counts of possessing extreme pornography.  He was made the subject of a community order, in which he will be supervised for a year.

Dawn Love fell victim to repair shop Stazi who reported pornographic images of people having sex with horses and dogs when she took her phone into an 02 shop to be repaired. When police searched her car they also found a DVD showing someone having sex with a dog.

Judge Christopher Critchlow opted not to send her to prison for her own safety after James Bloomer, defneding, pointed to psychiatric reports which said Love was at a high risk of killing herself if she was sent to prison.

Bloomer stressed that only two images - albeit showing brutal bestiality - had been found in Love's possession, and despite having convictions for other offences, she had no previous history of sexual offences.

A jury found Love guilty of possessing extreme porn earlier this year after a trial at Guildford Crown Court.

Sentencing her to a nine month jail term, suspended for two years, with a 12-month supervision order, Judge Critchlow said he had taken into account the dangerous effect jail could have on vulnerable Love. Judge Critchlow also ordered Love to hand over the phone and pay a £100 fine.

A Scottish  victim of the Dangerous Pictures law had a pictures so extreme that police officers were banned from analysing it on health and safety grounds, a court has heard.

Thomas Aitken was caught with the images, some of which featured bestiality, when police raided his home at Bryson Street in 2013.

Aitken pled guilty to having 13 illegal porn images on his computer at an earlier hearing and appeared at Dumbarton Sheriff Court for sentencing.

Fiscal depute Isobel Martin whined:

From a health and safety point of view of the police officers preparing these reports, it was felt that it could be harrowing enough to view but to sit down and detail what each photograph contained would be simply too much.

Sheriff Gallacher warned the victim Aitken that accessing porn of the type he did was not a 'victimless crime'.

The sheriff sentenced Aitken to 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered that he is supervised for 15 months.

Comment: Delicate Scottish coppers

19th March 2015. Thanks to Alan

This story really strains credulity!. Bestiality isn't my cup of tea (or nosebag of fodder???) and I've only come across it two or three times in my life. About forty years ago, at a Round Table meeting, I remember a guy passing round a pack of mucky playing cards in which the jokers involved equine participation. I also recall scenes in two of the 1980s Italian mainstream porn films starring Karin Schubert, Osceno and Poker di Donne, in which a minor character showed unusual affection for the family mutt. (The fragrant Frau Schubert herself has signed a contract which stipulated, like a fifties landlady, no blacks and no dogs -- and no blokes in the back way, either.)

Reaction each time? Embarrassed laughter! I can't believe that McPlod isn't allowed to watch because it will upset his equilibrium.

A man has been sentenced to 24 weeks in prison for possession of extreme pornography at Ipswich Magistrates Court

Police carried out a warrant at his home in Main Road in December 2013 after receiving information that he may be in possession of videos and images involving bestiality.

A number of items were seized including laptop computers and DVDs and these were sent for analysis. They were found to contain images of extreme pornography.

He was charged with seven counts of possession of extreme pornography and was sentenced to 24 weeks in custody and will have to sign onto the sex offenders register on his release and forfeit all material seized.