Newsnight carried a brief overview, an interview with London’s Chief Crown Prosecutor, Alison Saunders, and an interview with the acquitted defendant Simon Walsh.
I want to discuss is Alison Saunders’ attempt to defend her decision made on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service.
When asked by Eddie Mair why the CPS had brought the case, Saunders replied:
We brought the case because there was sufficient evidence and when we looked at the case we found that there was evidence to prosecute the offence of possessing extreme pornography. What we looked at there was whether or not there was a pornographic image and the element of the act we prosecuted under was whether or not the image showed there was likely to be harm or injury caused.
I’m going to start here with her description of the test being applied – likely to be harm or injury caused . This idea of harm and injury or harm and serious injury is repeated multiple times by Alison Saunders throughout the piece. I think it is important to note here what the law actually calls for:
an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals
Note, serious injury , not harm or serious injury . It has got to be likely to cause serious injury . All this talk of harm (which is a much wider term) is misleading. Serious Injury is the nature of the offence nothing less. Let’s not have the Chief Crown Prosecutor trying to widen an already too wide law and using slopping thinking to justify cases.
…Read the full article
Extract: Whilst on the subject of supposed ‘harm’
11th August 2012. See article from janefae.wordpress.com with thanks to David
The inevitable extension of power
Let’s start with what looks like a very ominous development indeed: the summing up by the trial judge in which he apparently explained to the jury that serious injury could involve physical, mental or moral harm .. This is par for the course. Over the years we have seen how the courts have extended legislation on child abuse material so that making an image, which the public, I suspect, naively consider to involve some sort of recording equipment and the presence of real live children now coversdownbloading . (Cause the image gets made on your hard drive, innit?).
Not that I have enormous issues with this particular extension: just that I think if the law was meant to be that, parliament should have said so. Then there’s the slide in respect of dvd’s and other material from legislating against stuff thatcauses harm to stuff that causes potential harm or is likely to cause harm .
And this year we have the interesting extension of the law on Obscene Publications to bring one-to-one conversations and online chat within its remit. Again: I can see WHY the authorities might wish this to be the case…but if they do, why not be honest and legislate it?
So. The fly in the ointment of this week’s case is the clear revelation that many in the judiciary have already internalised the falsehood that extreme porn legislation is a bit like Obscenity law and meant to deal with mental and moral harm despite the very clear denials by ministers and politicians just four short years ago that this law was intended to deal with depiction pure and simple.
…Read the full article
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