Mother wins ban on violent porn [UK bans possession of violent pornography]

BBC ^ | August 30, 2006

[John Jorsett]

A mother whose daughter died at the hands of a man obsessed with violent internet porn has won her fight for a ban on possessing such images.

The government has announced plans to make the possession of violent porn punishable by three years in jail.

It follows a campaign by Berkshire woman Liz Longhurst whose daughter Jane, a Brighton schoolteacher, was allegedly strangled by Graham Coutts.

Mrs Longhurst's campaign was backed by MPs and a 50,000-signature petition.

Hidden body

In November last year the petition won cross-party support when it was presented to the House of Commons and was backed publicly by the solicitor general, Harriet Harman MP.

Since her daughter's death Mrs Longhurst, 74, from Reading, has fought a long campaign to ban the possession of images of sexual violence.

Doubts remain over ban

Mrs Longhurst said: "My daughter Sue and myself are very pleased that after 30 months of intensive campaigning we have persuaded the government to take action against these horrific internet sites, which can have such a corrupting influence and glorify extreme sexual violence."

Jane Longhurst, 31, was found dead on Wiggonholt Common, near Pulborough, West Sussex, on 19 April 2003.

She had been strangled with a pair of tights and her body kept in storage for weeks before it was found.

In 2004, musician Coutts, 36, of Waterloo Street, Hove, West Sussex, was convicted of her murder but on appeal he was ordered to serve a minimum 26 years in jail.

Such material has no place in our society Home Office minister Vernon Coaker

Trial jurors had been told of his obsession with strangulation and how he looked at internet sites connected with the fetish.

It is already a crime to make or publish such images but proposed legislation will outlaw possession of images such as "material featuring violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in serious and disabling injury".

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker MP said: "Such material has no place in our society but the advent of the internet has meant that this material is more easily available and means existing controls are being by-passed - we must move to tackle this."

Mrs Longhurst said legislation, which would apply to all websites, would mean her daughter's death had not been "entirely in vain".

Reading West MP Martin Salter, who backed the campaign, said: "This campaign has taken a huge amount of time and effort but it has struck a chord right across the country.

Graham Coutts was said to have been addicted to violent porn

The move by the government would close a legal loophole.

"It is great news that the Government has not only listened but has responded to calls to outlaw access to sickening internet images, which can so easily send vulnerable people over the edge."

The new law will not target those who accidentally come into contact with obscene pornography or affect mainstream entertainment industry working within current obscenity laws.

But the proposed legislation has drawn opposition from anti-censorship groups and organisations who represent people involved in sadomasochist activities.

Shaun Gabb, director of the anti-censorship organisation the Libertarian Alliance, said: "If you are criminalising possession then you are giving police inquisitorial powers to come into your house and see what you've got, now we didn't have this in the past."

This year five Law Lords sent Coutts' case back to the Court of Appeal to "invite that court to quash the conviction".

It was argued that jurors in the original trial should have been offered the option of manslaughter as well as a murder verdict.

[antiRepublicrat]

Does Emma Peel kicking the bad guy's butt qualify?

That is a known violent fetish. Three years for buying an Avengers DVD?

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Izzat you Catherine McKinnon? "In the denotative sense, all sex is violent,..." What udder Barbara Streisand!

[Continental Soldier]

While it may be a crime to publish such violent pornography on the internet, I can't remember publisher being arrested and so charged. I do hear a lot about ordinary misfits being arrested and charged for viewing and/or downloading such crap. It seems to me that those who mastermind such enterprises should be the ones being arrested and charged. There is a lot about this that reminds me of the usual police stings in high prostitute areas. Rather than find and arrest the pimps and the prostitutes, arrest the 'johns' and tell the public that you're doing a great job of law enforement.

[sten]

I can't tell from that statement whether just viewing images via the WWW would be "possession," or whether it's referring to the servers hosting the images.

technically, once you pull the image from the remote web server, it gets cached to your local disk. at that point, you are in possession of the material.

[John Jorsett]

If that was the test, you could get a lot of people in trouble by causing their browsers to cache images that aren't displayed to the user. They'd never know it was there until the cops kicked in their doors and searched their computers.

[observer5]

So you go to jail for posessing images on a computer?

Wow, what's next?

[little jeremiah]

Even if you don't want it for the list, I know you'd be interested. Maybe tonight I'll have the time to read it all.

BTW, other people: no one is blaming porn all by itself. But it's a natural law that people are influenced to varying degrees by what they put into their sensory organs. If this were not true, neither education, religious instruction, book reading, propaganda, nor advertising would have any effect.

Obviously not every individual reacts exactly in the same manner or to the same degree. But the truth is undeniable - that to some degree at least, you are what you watch/listen to/see.

[Mr. Jeeves]

They'd never know it was there until the cops kicked in their doors and searched their computers.

Which makes it a wonderful law to have in place for a Socialist government interested in taking pre-emptive action against political threats.

[Chode]

Right!!! Well then... henceforth, all things sharp will be banned, and all things pointy shall also be banned, and anything that is sharp AND pointy is right out!!!

Also, things that are blunt are banned, and things that are heavy are banned, and things that are blunt AND heavy are RIGHT OUT AS WELL!!!

Well, lets see... that about cover it then???

[sten]

even better, if you are using an unpatched version of internet explorer, you could view an image on a normal site and have a virus installed on your machine. that machine could turn your machine into a 'bot-zombie'. basically running their program whenever the machine is turned on and logging into an irc channel. from that channel, it can recieved commands that it will execute... like 'cache and server these files'... which could be anything.

[Tribune7]

Why not 1948? Porn was banned in the U.K. back then.

[Killborn]

Thanks for the info. I didn't know that.

But it is clear that in 48 all porn is banned and now in 06, the UK banned violent porn. Which means along the line there was a reversal.

Because porn is almost mainstreamed into the culture, banning it now will have the same effect as the Prohibition. A ban wouldn't have matter in the 40s and 50s because there is societal pressure and shame to avoid it.

Add this to the fact that the Labor party is a leftist nanny state party that promotes the "free love" lie, this ban looks like an attempt to control the life of its people.

I hate pornography but Blue LAws today will lead to the opposite of its intended effect simply because society is far more tolerant and accepting of porn and other perversions.

[Question_Assumptions]

I think it's a great decision, personally. I'm very sorry, but if the abuse of women turns you on, I see no reason to encourage that fetish. Go find something else to turn you on -- like kicking puppies or tearing the wings off of butterflies. And, yes, women really do get abused both physically and mentally to make this porn. Please watch this program (the full program is available online) and before claiming that all violence in the pornography is faked, note that the Frontline crew was so disturbed the violent porn shoot they attended that they left and couldn't take it.

[TheFrog]

Things like this scare me because I have heard the same argument has being used when calling for the removal the Bible from libraries. Several years ago one small Texas town near where I live burned books that they thought were offensive, I watched on woman refer to Romeo and Juliet as "child porn" as Juliet was underage.

[wagglebee]

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[little jeremiah]

Comparing the Bible to violent porn is a symptom that you don't have a clue.

[Mrs. Don-o]

For one thing, the making (not just the viewing) of violent porn is abusive. After all, what is being portrayed is actually being done to some violently manhandled so-called "actress."

But as for the effect on violent porn on the addicts: would your opinion be influenced by evidence?

[AustinBill]

'Thought crime' is the hallmark of the police state. Welcome to Orwell's land.

[antiRepublicrat]

Comparing the Bible to violent porn is a symptom that you don't have a clue.

With its tales of incest, sodomy, rape and murder, the Bible wins hands-down over most, if not all, porn. Make the Bible into an explicit movie while being true to the text and it would be banned under this law.