back to article How extreme is your pr0n? Depends on your lawyer

In matters of extreme porn, the message of recent cases seems to be that whether you get off increasingly depends on how familiar your legal team are with a law still in its courtroom infancy. In Mold, Mr Andrew Robert Holland, of Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Clwyd, was originally charged on two counts of possessing extreme porn. The …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get off?

    "...whether you get off increasingly depends on how familiar your legal team are with a law still in its courtroom infancy".

    And there was me thinking it simply depended on just how much this sort of thing turns you on.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      @Get off?

      Damn you beat me to the punch.

      I had to re-read the first paragraph as I wasn't certain if it was meant to be like that, actually I shortened it a bit:

      "whether you get off increasingly depends on how familiar your legal team are"..

      I'll get my coat with 2nd place written on the back ..

      1. Major N

        So long as..

        As long as that punch was not belo0w the belt, as that would now classify as Extreme Pr0n.

        I was considering uising the Jole Alert image, but this set of law and case law is far too disturbing to be funny.

  2. hplasm
    Alert

    Why is this stuff illegal

    When other offensive material, such as the Daily Mail, and the participants of reality TV shows are not?

    Taxi to Mars, please.

  3. asiaseen

    afficionadoes of this law will be aware

    that neither experiencing severe pain ... are specifically outlawed within the law. Otherwise you'd never be able to go to the dentist.

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      Ah, but...

      ... the law in England and Wales has said that there are certain types of pain and injury that are acceptable, and unless it falls within specific categories, it is wrong, and cannot be consented to (see R v Brown, and R v Wilson). The categories that are acceptable are: surgery, body piercing, and legitimate sports (such as boxing). S&M is not included (the Brown case involved the use of thistles and nettles on the genitalia, and an incident involving a hammer, a nail, a plank of wood, and a scrotum). However, the Wilson case effectively added do-it-at-home branding to the list.

      There is no sense in this area of the law at all, and it is absolutely unjust.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    surely...

    ..the next "logical" step for the police would be to arrest the head of BME and have him/her charged with the making/distribution of extreme pr0n, after all the viral contains the BME name...

    also, have judges measure the sexual response of a defendant to such clips to determine if a person is sexually gratified, the test would be reminiscent of the witch-hunts of yesteryear. I'd dub it the boat test, If it floats...

  5. Raumkraut

    Know your porn

    Guy being hit in the nuts with a football = Slapstick comedy.

    Naked guy being hit in the nuts with a football = Extreme porn.

    People watch these genital mutilation things for the same reason they go to see Saw movies and the like: Some people just enjoy being shocked. And there are certainly also a great number of people who enjoy shocking others, and these are exactly the kind of people who would keep the clip around.

    You never know when you'll get an opportunity to record another "First Goatse": http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/firstgoatse/

  6. Mark .

    Copies of the legal images?

    "We have asked Mold police if it is possible to see copies of the second clip, in order to advise readers on what is now considered non-pornographic. So far we have received no response."

    Possibly this is a stupid question - but does Mr Holland have a copy that he is willing to share? Or have the police confiscated/deleted the image, despite him being not guilty? (Well, I suppose it's also possible that he deleted all copies out of fear or something...)

    (Also I wonder, was the reason for dropping the case just that it wasn't pornography? There are still other questions, such as what constitutes likely to cause "serious" injury.)

    And has anyone seen the first clip (of the tiger)?

    But yes, this sudden surge of cases, where the images only involve humans (as opposed to the animal clauses) is very worrying.

    Interesting to see that a lot of these people are just people who see them as "shock" images - people look at these for all sorts of reasons, even if they don't like them (just look at things like 2 Girls) - making the law far broader than going after just people who have a sexual interest.

    And those people who are into things like BDSM evidently are no longer untouched by the law - the Dorset dentist seems to be the first victim(?) of this law referred to as being into bondage. So much for all the assurances that bondage/BDSM fans had nothing to worry about.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Hysterical Nonsense - Or Is It?

      I seem to remember that when this Act was a Bill going through Parliament, predictions of cases such as these were dismissed, by some, as hysterical nonsense.

      I very vaguely remember, back when the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 amended the Protection of Children Act 1978 to criminalise possession of indecent pseudo-photographs of children, there was concern that this was a step towards criminalising possession of drawings and the like. Such predictions might have sounded like hysterical nonsense at the time, but, fifteen years later, we have Section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 criminalising possession of such things as cartoons.

      Other "hysterical" predictions yet to come true:-

      * Possession of extreme pornographic writing will be criminalised. (That's already been called for in Parliament, hasn't it?)

      * Possession of written child pornography (quite broadly defined) will be criminalised (criminalising many possessors of teenage diaries that include sexually explicit material). (Again, that's already been called for in Parliament, if I remember correctly.)

      * The relevant age for appearing in pornography for that pornography to be legal will be raised to 21, in order to protect those who are under 18 but who can pass for those over 18. This will also be said to close the existing "loophole" that allows porn distributors to "get around the law" by selling "teen porn" by exploiting teenagers who happen to be 18 or 19.

      * Possession of all images of children will eventually be criminalised, unless the possessor can show good reason for possession, in order to stop paedophiles "getting around the law" by exploiting the "loophole" that allows them to possess images of children that aren't in any way indecent or pornographic.

      I'm sure there are plenty of other "hysterical" predictions, but those are the only ones I can think of right now.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        Hysterical Predictions

        "I'm sure there are plenty of other "hysterical" predictions, but those are the only ones I can think of right now."

        Continuing your theme, "writing about child pornography" will become illegal. At which point your goose is cooked. I'll be safe until "discussing writing about child pornography" is made illegal...

  7. LesB

    So they'll be after the boxing fans next, then?

    That does tend to involve people "likely to be experiencing severe pain and risking injury as a result", doesn't it?

    Or is that OK because it's all above the belt?

    Or is there some definitive list of acceptable forms of pain and injury risk that we should know about?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      They'll also be after all females...

      And shoe shops for wearing and selling stiletto shoes ! After all they are generally worn below the belt !

      Girls (and Trannies) you have been warned !

  8. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Kafkaesque

    So what about beheading, hanging and other execution videos which are obviously violent, offensive and there's often no doubt about authenticity or harm ?

    Some of these have previously been carried on mainstream TV channels in the UK. I'm sure someone somewhere will get a perverted kick out of such things. I know there are also things I would call unacceptable, and I also believe there should be criminal offences for some cases.

    However; it seems that this law (typical of New Labour heritage) is wide-sweeping, poorly defined, has lack of clarity and is open to interpretation by prosecution, judge and jury (and probably deliberately so). The same can be seen in anti-terrorism legislation where "items useful to terrorits" can include the humble A-to-Z and even cruet sets (if thrown hard enough at an MP with intent to influence government policies).

    A state-sponsored execution is obviously different to a 'snuff movie' crime but it appears that the law is not interested in such technicalities, intent nor intent of ownership.

    We need to shake off this 'Police State' and nanny-state mentality New Labour have left us with and revoke 'catch-all' laws which are largely political in nature.

  9. Brianc

    Sobering reading indeed

    But I'm not sure about this bit "convicted on the sole charge of possessing extreme pornography depicting pain being inflicted" because it seems to imply that a picture depicting pain being inflictedis necessarily extreme pornography. I guess it's technically correct! I think possession of a picture of pain being inflicted is in general highly unlikely to be categorised as extreme pornography. The judgement about whether a picture is extreme pornography or not is such a dodgy area that us mere mortals are not allowed to examine the evidence, presumably in case we are irredeemably depraved and corrupted by it. I imagine that any lawyer or juror who sees this stuff in the course of a trial will be so damaged that they will need years of psychotherapy to recover. If they are not damaged by seeing it, it cannot therefore be categorised as extreme. Ha!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    All The Madmen

    How did we get here, folks? What perverse, twisted process of 'law', has led us down this particularly dark and wretched road? How on earth is this idiocy being allowed to happen in British courts? Why are judges even entertaining this outrage to common sense?

    It really is incredible. What sinister forces must be at work in police and government to cook up such a hateful legislation? Truly, this is Orwellian. How do we codify this? 'Wrongthought'? Perhaps we need to ask the Ministry of Love for some clarification.

    The ONLY silver lining is that the more the useless, idiot police go about arresting and criminalizing consenting adults for consensual adult sexual activity the closer comes the day of reckoning. You can push your luck with the proles only so far.

    I sincerely hope these clowns get called to account for their blatant - and dangerous - stupidity sooner rather than later. How far down this awful road must we travel before it gets too late to turn back..? Keep calling these fools out, El Reg, please...

    1. Mike Smith
      Big Brother

      Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity

      "How did we get here, folks? What perverse, twisted process of 'law', has led us down this particularly dark and wretched road? How on earth is this idiocy being allowed to happen in British courts? Why are judges even entertaining this outrage to common sense?"

      It's because so many people in this country are stupid. Utterly, irretrievably, monumentally downright fucking stupid.

      They are stupid because they lap up tabloid hysteria. They are stupid because they do not make the effort to understand the sort of government they voted for. Four times on the trot, by the last count - let's just be glad a little ray of sanity shone through back in May and tipped the balance back a bit. They are stupid because they do not think things through and meekly accept the piss and wind that politicians use to justify their craven subservience to the gutter press.

      And that is a vicious circle. The people are too stupid to think for themselves and want to be told by the media what to think, wear, watch, listen to, do, eat and drink. And more importantly, who to vote for. Which means that in the absence of any politician with backbone, the government drops its collective daks and strains as soon as Murdoch's prolefeed says shit.

      That, I think, is the answer. There isn't a hotbed of Stalinism at work in Whitehall. Idiot politicians are just doing what they believe the proles want. And judging by last May's voting record in the face of thirteen years' worth of blatant assault on our civil liverties, an awful lot of proles want exactly that.

      1. Chris007
        FAIL

        Pedantic Alert

        NuLiebore was elected 3 times on the trot

        1997

        2001

        2005

        1. Mike Smith
          Thumb Down

          Too pedantic

          And how many voted for them again a few months ago?

          8,609,527.

          That's a lot of people who either didn't know or didn't care about their appalling record of State abuse of power and were presumably quite happy to see them back in again.

          Scary. And stupid.

  11. Sir Runcible Spoon

    Sir

    "Dorset dentist - David Hill from Pennington Close, West Moors - convicted on the sole charge of possessing extreme pornography depicting pain being inflicted."

    Was it an instructional video on how not to drill into the gum?

  12. Ryan Barrett

    Sued for goatse?

    What's the world coming too?

    ..and goatse. sexual? Thems are pretty twisted police officers if they find that sexual....

    1. lpopman
      Unhappy

      titular anomoly

      I had the misfortune to find the full set of pics of the goatse dude hidden on goatse.cx before the site disappeared, and they were _definitely_ extreme gay porn.

      I need the eye and mind soap again after remembering that. Thank you.

      Anyone remember PenisBird?

  13. envmod
    Grenade

    Pain Olympics

    I have seen the BME clip - it is a close up of a man's genitals (not erect btw), laid on a chopping board. he then produces a very small hatchet and proceeds to cut his willy off. stuff comes out and it's all very eeeuuuw. not remotely sexual in any way, and also probably faek.

    but i am sure some bitter old, daily mail reading judge, being shown it for the first time, would be utterly horrified and take the whole thing as an insult to his/her sensibilities, leading to the sort of sentences for extreme pr0n we are now witnessing.

    unfortunately, a lot of the "establishment" involved in law making/sentencing etc have no fucking idea of the sort of stuff that gets sent around on line and probably don't even have email. us, tech savvy people have got used to goatse, tubgirl and two-girls one cup etc so do not see this kind of extreme material as extreme any more. it has become almost normal...but sadly, not to the people in charge.

    btw, what's the laws on scat porn? my mate's into it. ahem.

    1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Pain Olympics

      It's not necessarily fake - it does happen. But to my knowledge it's not sexual. In fact, if you think about it for a nanosecond, it's rather a rejection of the sexual.

      I don't believe people film these things to provide arousal for others. It wouldn't be very cost-effective, for a start.

      1. oldredlion
        Coat

        Make a career in the movies?

        "I don't believe people film these things to provide arousal for others. It wouldn't be very cost-effective, for a start."

        At least there is no chance of the actors becoming type cast.

  14. Chris Miller
    Headmaster

    aficionados

    Check with your Spanish desk.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    entrapment

    someone send you an extreme pr0n clip while a police officer is looking over your shoulders! The police officer will even be a whitens to the fact that you were watching the clip in a public area.

  16. Jacqui

    birth as porn

    A couple of hospitals have stopped fathers taking cameras and phones into birthing rooms quoting "anti-pron laws". I am just waiting for some poor new dad to get done for publishing the birth of his families new addition...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      it happens

      I published some pictures of our moments-old baby online, for relatives to access. Some time later I noticed in the log accesses with referrers from strange places - checking them, it was forum spam for porn sites directly linking my babies pictures!! I removed them, of course, and the whole domain is now suspended until I get around to implementing a password-protected version. I still can't work out why, though, some of this spam used my site as a target for the links too... incompetent spammers?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why cant the British do anything without a HUGE contradiction?

    Typical of the judiciary system in our country, no one knows what they are talking about and were left wondering if we're going to be jailed or not cuase yet mate sent you a video clip.

    Shocking, but typical!

  18. Arweet
    Big Brother

    I don't owe an explanation

    for the picture of a tiger prawn on my mobile. Not to the police, not to a judge, not to society. How it got there, how long it stayed there, what I use it for, or what I don't use it for, is irrelevant because it should be my right to own pictures of tiger prawns, regardless of what people may or may not do with them. A nation that does not recognize this most basic of freedoms cannot call itself civilised.

  19. Elmer Phud

    No more late night telly?

    Ah well, no more watching the pair from Dirty Sanchez on telly as they inflict pain on each other.

    It was fun while it lasted but now I can expect a knock on the door late at night.

  20. Eden
    Stop

    @Jacqui

    Scarrily I had that reaction to publishing photos of my baby girl at approx 5 seconds old.

    Family Member: YOU CAN'T SEND THAT TO PEOPLE!! It's shows her moo moo!

    Me: errr...that's how they are born?

    Family Member: But what if some pervert gets off on it?

    Me: errrr....a) I imagine very few people actually get off on newborns

    b) I'm sending it to people I KNOW and TRUST

    c) It's a very common image shown on TV, the internet etc every freaking DAY.

    d) WTF is wrong with you!?!?

    1. Ihre Papiere Bitte!!
      Unhappy

      me three...

      My son was born Friday last week, and has developed the amusing (to him, anyway!) habit of weeing all over the shop when I change his diaper. My wife thought a vid of my unexpected golden shower would be something we could use to embarass him into a semblance of obedience in his teenage years, and boy, did we get a telling off for that mistake. We even got a visit from Scary Matron to tell us why we shouldn't do Things Like That.

      Unfortunately, they don't come home until tomorrow, so I wasn't willing to fight the odds at the time, as my missus still needs a lot of assistance from the staff when I get booted out at 9pm.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        WTF?

        @me three

        Seriously? they said that?

        I suppose I shouldn't be shocked by that but it does sadden me to see how people are (over)reacting to this type of rubbish law.

        I still hope that the general populace will apply a pragmatic approach to stupid laws but alas doesn't look like it will be in my lifetime.

      2. Rob Beard

        Home births

        First of all... congratulations.

        Secondly, maybe there is something to be said about home birth if it's possible, you can take pictures/videos if you wish without a matron interfering.

        Saying that, when my youngest was born at home (wife had no choice, she was in labour for about an hour and couldn't make it to the hospital) it wasn't a particularly pretty sight, certainly wasn't arousing at all.

        I wonder what will be next, videos of dogs humping cuddly toys/peoples legs on youtube?

        Rob

      3. Anomalous Cowturd
        Pint

        @ Ihre Papiere Bitte!!

        Congratulations!

        I hope you get as much sheer joy from your new arrival as I do from mine after 14 years... Bless her.

        It's why we're here!

        Enjoy.

        And wet his head with this. ;o)

        1. Ihre Papiere Bitte!!
          Happy

          @ responders

          Yes, I really *DID* get iin trouble. They knew full well that we "didn't have any but innocent reasons" etc, but we had to "think about the consequences of allowing filming in a maternity ward, how the staff can't police what people are filming if they allow it, etc.

          Thanks for the congrats, I'm bringing him (and his mum) home today. I'll be cracking open a very expensive bottle of vintage laphroig, and it's gonna taste real good after 6 months of being dry*!!

          (*his mum couldn't drink, so I knocked it on the head too. Modern man? No. Coward who married a martial artist? Yes!)

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Congratulations

            The way the law is going, it is difficult to do anything these days.

            Yes, I know they need this type of law to protect the innocent and arrest the guilty.

            But what about those who are innocent but step over the legal line, which does not follow the moral line?

            My folks have a photo of me in the buff in the bath when I was little and I don't see the problem (other than the usual comments made when the albums come out full of fully clothed but more embarrassing photos). However, I would be worried to do the same thing in this day and age.

  21. Thomas 18
    Thumb Down

    You have been found guilty of trust! the penalty is imprisonment!

    So somone you trust sends you a link, you follow it and are now guilty of a crime without ever having any intention of breaking the law or having caused anyone any harm except possibly your own psyche.

    I particularly love the way you are charged for watching material which is never released to the public. The perfect crime, send you away forever and you can't even defend yourself publicly.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    the law is an ass

    The law is an ass.If someone wants to watch pron whether its the plumber with shady moustache variety or extreme / fetish,etc thats up to them.As long as people weren't hurt and everything was consensual then I don't have an issue with it. when some starts abusing kids, vulnerable people , animals etc then they should have the book thrown at them.

    I'm sure there should be other things that the police and law should be spending (or wasting )

    taxpayers money on.

    Tacking gun crime.

    Stopping human trafficking.

    Tougher sentences for people who commit gun & crimes.

    People who commit fraud(I'm including the bankers out there)

    terrorism

    etc,

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    FFS

    The religious types are really pissing me off with their porn laws...

    1. mmiied

      tolorance pls

      pls to not tar us all with the same brush

  24. Pavlov's obedient mutt

    circumcision

    So...

    if a Jewish / Islamic family take a video of the day their dahlingk young boy is mutilated - I mean, circumcised - then that's extreme porn?

    Good

    that'll teach the fuckers

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tony the tiger

    I saw the tiger movie years ago somewhere (can't remember where exactly), I think it was a mates phone, anway, It's funny as hell. The sound clip is a very poor impression of Tony the tiger, spouting some rubbish then doing Tony's trademark 'Grrrrreat' and all the while it plays a gif of a tiger rocking back and forth atop a crouched lady.

    Anon for obvious reasons. Even though I saw it years ago before the Labour twats managed to push through this obsurd law, it doesn't hurt to be wary.

  26. TheOtherJola
    Coat

    Thank goodness for Apple!

    If they'd have correctly populated the bluetooth stack in their iPhones and allowed access to bluetooth OBEX as well as the file system, the Jesus and Judas Phones would both be vulnerable from this type of security vulnerability.

    Thanks to Apple, you cannot receive files via bluetooth and therefore cannot be prosecuted.

    Hurrah!

  27. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Chopping bits off your willy

    So is it only images or are we going to arrest people for ACTUALLY chopping bits off somebodies willy?

    It would involve a large expansion in the prison population - you would probably have to start building special camps. On the other hand the Daily Mail would support it.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    desperate

    do I need to hand myself in?

    I saw John Waters' movie Desperate Living - (about 30 years ago, in a respectable late night Hampstead cinema) - in which a character cuts off his/her penis directly to camera - and can I also have taken into consideration seeing the arsehole dance in Pink Flamingos, as well as the closing scene of real poo eating - the genie ain't going back into its bottle

  29. binner
    Unhappy

    mssing something

    what about the people who sent the accused the clip ?

    shouldn't they be sought out and jailed for distributing extreme porn or am I missing something ?

    1. envmod

      *sigh* title...

      Jesus man, give him a break - he's got enough problems what with cutting off his yoghurt chucker.

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