Slowly, surely, inexorably, the new puritanism is enveloping this country. Trawling its way through parliament is the egregious amendment to the criminal justice bill that will outlaw the possession of “violent” pornography. This terrible bill is the consequence of a terrible crime – and as such, is a terrible reason for it to be considered in the first place. As with the dangerous dogs act and the handgun legislation, we have bad law built rashly on the back of a tragedy.
Five years ago Jane Longhurst, a teacher from Brighton, was murdered. It later emerged her killer had been compulsively accessing websites such as Club Dead and Rape Action, which contained images of women being abused and violated.
So this man liked to watch violent porn. This does not mean that violent porn leads to violent acts. This is the facile thinking of the ban-it brigade, those who claim that porn leads to rape, that violent video games lead to violent behaviour. This is a non sequitur. People who are predisposed to behave badly may well want to watch videos and pictures of acts that turn them on. It does not mean that watching such material corrupts or depraves people to the point where they will carry out acts of violence against others purely as a consequence.
Under the new rules, criminal responsibility shifts from the producer – who is responsible under the OPA – to the consumer.
And where will this lead? Another operation ore is highly likely. This from Deborah Hyde of Backlash:
“How many tens or hundreds or thousands of people are going to be dragged into a police station, have their homes turned upside down, their computers stolen and their neighbours suspecting them of all sorts?
Such “victims” won’t feel able to fight the case and will take a caution, before there are enough test cases to prove that this law is unnecessary and unworkable”
Which is pretty much what happened with operation ore – innocent people had their lives and reputations destroyed by an obsessive, puritanical state set upon prosecuting scapegoats.
While I have sympathy for Jane Longhurst’s mother’s loss, I have no sympathy whatsoever for her nasty little campaign:
Speaking from her home in Berkshire, Mrs Longhurst acknowledges that libertarians see her as “a horrible killjoy”.
Ah, yes, the old “I’m jot a killjoy, but…” argument. Yes, Mrs Longhurst, you are a killjoy, because you want to subvert the law in order to impose your sensibilities on others.
“I’m not. I do not approve of this stuff but there is room for all sorts of different people. But anything which is going to cause damage to other people needs to be stopped.”
There being no evidence that watching pornography, violent or otherwise, causes such damage to others; it is not the place of the state – nor the victims of crime – to decree what people watch or read in the privacy of their own homes.
To those who fear the legislation might criminalise people who use violent pornography as a harmless sex aid, she responds with a blunt “hard luck”.
There you have it. Mrs Longhurst is now the arbiter – with the blessing of a puritanical state – of what you may or may not watch. Don’t like it? Hard luck is the reply. Mrs Longhurst is right and you are wrong. Hard luck, tough titty. That you are a consenting adult engaging in consensual activities, watching other consenting adults engaging in consensual activities is neither here nor there to Mrs Longhurst. She doesn’t like it, she doesn’t understand why you want to do or watch it, so, hard luck. What she says, goes. Get used to it. Your life is not your own. Mrs Longhurst will tell you what is okay or not.
“There is no reason for this stuff. I can’t see why people need to see it. People say what about our human rights but where are Jane’s human rights?”
Which just goes to demonstrate how catastrophically ignorant this woman is. Her daughter was murdered by a violent criminal – this has nothing to do with the matter of human rights or freedom of speech and expression. Mrs Longhurst is confusing negative and positive liberty. In restricting the liberty to read and watch what we like, Mrs longhurst will not prevent another tragedy of the type that befell her daughter. Those who are predisposed to murder, will do so. Meanwhile, innocent people will suffer the consequences of bad law because Mrs Longhurst went on a vengeance trip enabled by people like David Blunkett.
This law makes me sick and after reading that thing about ORE it scares the shit out of me.
How can a bunch of corrupt morally base c**ts preach to us on how we wish to lead our lives.
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I am one of those who have been fighting these ridiculous proposals since the start. It is clear that our Government does not trust us to behave like reasonable and sensible adults, they think that if we see this material we’re going to do nasty things, so the Nanny State is going to say “we think this is bad for you, so we’re not going to let you see it”.
Not only that, it will be someone else’s *subjective* view on how an image *appears* that will determine whether you are committing an offence, you may not even know if you’ve broken the law until someone else says “that image is grossly offensive and I think it risks someone’s life or might cause them serious injury”.
There is still the possibility of getting this ludicrous law thrown out, everyone needs to write to their MPs NOW via http://www.writetothem.com and tell them that they don’t was want to see a Thought Crime introduced into British Law.
For more details and counter arguments see the Backlash site at http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk
Yes, Blair’s Babes have become the Nation’s Nannies.
The scariest thing is that this stupid bitch Mrs Longhurst is actually going to end up being directly responsible for more rapes and deaths. (As counter to her insistance, availability of this kind of pornography actually reduces rapes/murder. If the dappy bitch would just bother to look into the figures…)
I hope someone slaps her in the face with the increasing rape figures in about 5 years time and I hope the bitch will be happy then. So she lost her daughter. Tough shit. Doesn’t give her the right to tell everybody else what they can do. Sorry I have /no/ sympathy for her at all now.
Anyone with the slightest bit of common sense should be able to work out that victims of crime should be the last people to make up law.
Look into the rape figures in the US compared to availability of porn if you doubt what I say.
Common sense doesn’t enter the equation. This is, as usual, populism designed to appeal to an infantilised population.
I don’t like this law. I don’t like the way it’s set out. Apart from all the libertarian implications: how the hell are you to know if you’ve broken the law or not? And the way the legislation is written, even excerpts from BBFC-certified films could land you in jail! Utterly stupid. Yes, a woman died at the hands of some sicko but if you were to use that scenario you could pretty much try to justify any encroachment on the liberty of the subject.
I think this kind of law will be used as a ‘fishing’ exercise – i.e. “we can’t get him for something really dodgy, so we’ll look through his belongings/computer/videos to see what else we can get him on”. A sad indictment of British society.
Can I move to Denmark now please? At least the population there isn’t entirely made up of morons.
This law will be unenforcible. The authorities can expect no cooperation from other police forces as the possession of pornography featuring consenting adults is not illegal in liberal democracies. Will the British filth be too proud to accept the assistance of Saudi Arabia’s religious police, one wonders? As another poster has said, prosecutions under this law will only occur when police fail examine a suspect’s hard drive and find nothing else to prosecute him for. I doubt that any prosecutions will result from ‘Operation Ore’ like investigations, as such investigations happen because of international cooperation between law enforcement agencies. And such cooperation is unlikely to be forthcoming.