28th November 2005
				
Dear Sir/Madam,

I have downloaded and read all 34 pages of the consultation documenton the possession of extreme pornographic material.I have also followed discussion in the media regarding the proposals.

MEDIA CAMPAIGN

Much of the media interest has been centred around the campaign mounted by the Jane Longhurst Trust. Upon viewing their website I notice that they claim to have over 50,000 signatures in support of the proposals. It is significant that they have not even bothered to include a link on their site to the consultation document and that they have misrepresented the proposals on their online petition. The petitioners are asked to "object to the presence of extreme internet sites promoting violence against women". The proposals make no such sexual differentation. Given that only a handful of the 50,000 signatories have actually read the proposals and that there has been misrepresentation on this website of what the proposals actually entail, I would suggest that the views of these signatories carry very little weight.

Similarly, there have been at least two local newspaper campaigns which have raised tens of thousands of signatories in support of the proposals. Once again there has been no  publication of the proposals, nor has there been links as to where the full consultation document can be viewed. The articles in these newspapers have been emotional knee jerk responses to the murder of Jane Longhurst, aimed at producing moral outrage amongst it's readers, as opposed to producing reasonable debate regarding an atempt to further curtail personal freedom of the individual in this country. Once again, I would suggest that this large volume of signatories have very little worth, as they have not been given the opportunity to make an informed decision by being given access to the full details of the proposals.

STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION

I understand that the list of stakeholders who have actually been consulted regarding these proposals consist mainly of Police and Customs bodies. There are several glaring omissions from the stakeholders list. Presumably because, if included, they would raise very legitimate and constructive arguments against the proposals.

There has been no attempt to involve organisations representing the freedoms of individual in this country. Neither has there been any inclusion of psychiatrists, whose views should be of paramount importance in this matter. There has been no consultation with representatives of the BDSM community, even though an estimated 5 million people in this country who engage in some form of this sexual preference would be the group most likely to be affected by the proposed new laws.

In view of the above, the stakeholder consultation process has been a sham and, in my opinion, the consultation period should be extended and the list of stakeholders who are consulted should be dramatically increased to include representatives of the above groups.

SCOPE OF THE PROPOSED NEW LAW

This is the area where I have my greatest reservations. Whilst I can sympathise with those who would ban the extreme images depicting death and torture which are detailed in section 5 of the consultation document, there is the real possibility that, given the vague guidelines, this proposed new law could be used to create hundreds of thousands of potential new criminals overnight. Given the definition of serious sexual violence as described in section 41, the proposed new law encompass images which show or depict the sort of consensual beatings which are carried out, within the law, in a BDSM relationship. It has been estimated that at least 10% of the adult population indulge in BDSM in one form or another. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that that there will be an enormous number of people who have images that reflect their sexual preferences. I appreciate that it is not perhaps the intention of the proposals to make criminals of people who have images of spanked  or caned bottoms in their possession. However, the defintion states that the proposed new law would ban images of violence in respect of which a prosecution for Grevious Bodily Harm could be brought. There is no legal defintion for Grevious Bodily Harm and it is a matter of fact for a jury to decide. Therefore, this is a very grey area and there is a real possibility that, if the proposals are made law, action could be taken against countless people who have images which portray the sort of consensual activity that tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of people in BDSM practice legally on a regular basis. Interpretation of any new law of this type is going to be critical and the precident of an 82 year old man arrested for heckling at the Labour Party conference under the guise of the anti terrorist law is a prime example of how laws can be interpreted in ways which they were not originally intended to be interpreted.

I recently watched The Passion of Christ, a movie which included a very realistic and brutal beating of Christ using heavy whips with sharp metal tips. It showed the flesh being ripped from His back. I understand that, because the film had been passed by the British Board of Film Classification, possession of this film would not be illegal under the proposed new laws. However, if still images of this scene were put on a sexually orientated website and downloaded onto a computer in this country, they would presumably be illegal. This would be a ludicrous state of affairs. Someone could be sent to jail for up to 3 years for having a still image on their computer, even though the movie from which the image was taken is on general sale in this country and perfectly legal. If the still image is not deemed illegal, because it was taken from a film which had been classified, then how could it be justified to send someone to prison for having a similar image in their possession which is not taken from a classified film. There has to be some consistency between what is legal in films which have received a classification and the type of images that the proposal seeks to outlaw. 

This, to me, is where the proposals are on very shakey ground. There are all sorts of extreme mutilation which are very realistically depicted in countless horror movies. How can it be legal to watch this mutilation on video or at a cinema, but face up to 3 years in prison for having possession of less extreme material in the privacy of your own home? One of the justifications given in the proposals is that watching such images could lead someone to commit a violent crime similar to the murder of Jane Longhurst. Surely if this is the case, watching a movie at the cinema showing mutilation and torture will have the same effect as having similar material on a home computer. If the argument is accepted that watching scenes of mutilation is likely to cause people to commit violent crimes, then such scenes should be illegal both in cinema's and home computers. To allow one and not the other merely leads one to the conclusion that the argument is not proven.

The proposed new measures have been prompted by the murder of Jane Longhurst. I would have a fair degree of sympathy with the banning of the sort of images of mutilation and asphyxiation as described in section 5 of the proposals. However, the net appears as though it is being cast far wider than the sort of sites visited by Jane Longhurst's killer and it would appear that the 'high moral brigade' are using her death as a opportunistic vehicle to justify banning anything and everything that offends their sensibilities. There has, for example, been no evidence whatsoever put forward in the consultation document that images of sex with animals or necrophilia have led to an increase of of these type of offences being committed. Whilst I personally have an abhorrence of this type of activity, I find it equally abhorrent that a person could face up to 3 years inprisonment for being in possession of an image showing this type of activity. If the proposals are to be made law, there has to be realistic correlation between the gravity of the charges that would be imposed upon they type of activity that is being depicted. For instance, offences involving murder and maiming of another human being obviously attract far higher sentances than offences involving animals or corpses. Similarly, there have been no succesful prosecutions brought in the past ten years, to my knowledge, regarding sado masochistic activities between consenting adults in this country, whereas such activities could easily be included in the scope of these proposals and people viewing images of such could find themselves facing a 3 year prison sentance, even though crimal charges are highly unlikely to be succesfully brought against those actually participating in this type of activity.

RESEARCH

Whilst being shocked at the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Jane Longhurst, I feel that there has been no evidence presented that the websites visited by the person convicted of her murder had a direct influence upon her death. Indeed, there has been no conclusive research which proves that exposure to images of sexual violence increases the risk of the viewer carrying out violent acts. If there was a direct link, one would have thought, given the numerous websites showing images which the proposals seek to outlaw, that there would be a far higher incidence of similar crimes amongst the 60 million population than the solitary case over the past few years. 

To equate the proposals with child pornography laws is misleading and alarmist. Whilst there were numerous examples of people committing offences against children after viewing child pornography images, there has been just one single instance put forward of someone committing a murder or serious assault after viewing violent sexual images. 

Whilst the proposals make the assumption that the viewing of sexually violent images led directly to Jane Longhurst's murder, it could just as easily be argued that the availability of such images has actually reduced the likelihood of such offences being committed. Despite the easy availability of material depicting sexual violence with the advent of the internet, there has been no explosion of violent sexually motivated offences being committed over the past 15 years or so.The tiny minority of people who have fantasies about inflicting sexual violence are able to have those fantasies satisfied by viewing images which depict such violence rather than actually carrying out those acts themselves. There is therefore a strong case to be made for allowing the viewing of such images to remain legal.

In any other area of law, extensive studies and research would be carried out before proposals to further curtail the freedoms of the individual in this country. Jane Longhurst's tragic death appears to be being used as an excuse to circumvent and avoid such research, presumably because the authors of the proposals are aware that results from studies and research would probably not support their aims. If there were a rash of murders and serious assaults related to people who had viewed the type of images that the proposals wish to outlaw, one might have some sympathy and support for the measures suggested. However, one solitary incident has spawned this reaction. Compare that to the large volume of murders that are alcohol related. Yet there are no proposals to ban alcohol sales with penalties of imprisonment.

PUBLIC VALUES AND MORALS

The general public have a wide range of values and morals. There are those who would like to make it illegal to view sexual images of any description whatsoever, however, that does not justify such legislation. There are those who would like to make sex acts between homosexuals illegal, however, laws have been passed to actually allow that type of activity. Just because an image offends the sensibilities and morals of a group of the community, even a vast majority of the community, it does not in itself justify making possession of that image a crime punishable by a prison sentance.

An important plank of the argument for legislation regarding violent sexual images is that children are able to access such images freely. Obviously there is a problem with children having access to all types of adult rated material on the internet. To make it illegal to view a very tiny minority of the adult rated images that children currently have access to does not solve the overall problem. I would agree that action needs to be taken to protect chidren from viewing adult rated material, but it is a red herring to use the child access argument to justify banning the viewing of sexually violent images for the entire population.

Human Rights and Freedom

We are told that one of the greatest benefits of living in this country are the freedoms we enjoy.We invade other countries in order to impose our freedoms and values upon their people.  It is therefore somewhat ironic that it is proposed that we become the only country on the planet where the freedom to view sexually violent images is outlawed.

With freedom comes responsibility. We are all responsible for our actions and should be allowed to take that responsibility. There are ever growing accusations that we are heading towards a Nanny State which removes our freedoms and takes away our responsibilities. The proposals would seek to remove further freedoms from us and would take us one step closer to an Orwellian nightmare State.

If there is justification for making the proposals law, why are we not proposing that it becomes adopted as European law? Any new law will undoubtedly be tested in the European Court of Human Rights, in any case. 

CONCLUSION

Large numbers of signatories have been collected that purport to support the proposals. However, the overwhelming majority of these signatories have neither read the proposals, nor have they had the proposals explained to them in detail. They have responded to sensationalist news articles in local newspapers which have misrepresented the proposals by only including a very small part of them. Similarly the signatories from the Jane Longhurst Trust website have not been presented with the full facts of the proposals, nor have they been given a link on the website to enable them to view the proposals for themselves.

The proposals have been put forward as a result of one isolated tragic incident. There has been no evidence put forward to suggest that this incident would have been avoided had the proposals been made law. Furthermore there has been no attempt to obtain evidence in support of the proposals via studies or research. Indeed, there appears to have been a deliberate attempt to avoid study and research by eliminating any parties that might have constructive and valid criticism of the proposals by excluding various relevant bodies from the Stakeholder process.

Although using the one isolated, albeit tragic, incident as justification for further erosion of our freedoms in this country, the proposals go much further than the case justifies. The scope of the proposals are far reaching and includes areas which bear little relation to the incident which prompted the proposals. Furthermore, the parameters are so vague that interpretation of the proposed new law would be difficult in the extreme. If the proposals were to be made law, the inconsistencies between what an individual is able to view at a  cinema and on video and what would be constiututed as a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment are absurd.

A lot of the justifications put forward in the proposals are invalid and prejudiced. Just because the vast majority of the population finds certain images abhorrent, it does not follow that viewing such images should automatically become illegal. The argument that children need to be protected from this type of material is also misleading as it does not address the fact that they will still be able to view millions of images of adult rated material on the internet.

Certainly there should be a far greater period of time allowed for consultation of these proposals. This time should be used to involve a far wider cross-section of Stakeholders and to initiate research and studies. Our freedoms are far too important to be be thrown away in a knee-jerk reaction to one isolated incident with no findings from studies and research to support such legislation.

Given the vagueness of the parameters and scope of the proposals, the potential impact has been greatly underated. These proposals have the potential, depending upon interpretation of creating hundreds of thousands of criminals at the stroke of a pen. Just as the potential impact has been under-rated, so the volume of police needed to  enforce any such future law has also been seriously misjudged. Several hundred Police Officers are employed to ensure that the child pornography laws relating to internet downloads are upheld. The far reaching scope and the vagueness of the parameters in the proposals would mean that several times that number of Police would be occupied in enforcing these proposals  if they became law. All this to ensure that the odd isolated incident which may or may not be attributable to viewing of violent sexual images, might or might not be avoided.

Yours faithfully