Extreme Pornography: Legal Theory, Institutional Reality

Nick Cowen, of the campaign group Backlash, has written a really important piece over at the Freedom in a Puritan Age webzine. He rightly challenges some of the comments by McGlynn and Rackley on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act.  Whilst I recognise both legal scholars, they have been wrong on this issue.  He also explores an assertion by Paul Johnson (a scholar I nearly always agree with and published a chapter in his latest book early this year) around sending out moral signals - a fair comment by Johnson who draws upon a European lexicon in his argument - but one which Cowen notes the judge in R v Walsh ruled in appropriate (although the defence did put forward the Johnson argument).

The full piece can be read here.

#porntrial - Further Analysis

A number of other reports have emerged following the case of R v Walsh (see this previous post), aka #porntrial.  The solicitor in the case, Myles Jackman, has written a compelling piece on his blog in which concludes:

'It is my contention that the matter is now beyond the remit of the CPS, Met and BBFC and that the subject requires the scrutiny of the Home Secretary, Ministry of Justice and the Law Commission and that questions should be asked in the House.'

Jackman is absolutely right.  The issue of images of consensual sexual acts - both under the Obscene Publications Act and Criminal Justice and Immigration Act should not be decided by more lives ruined, and further costly and clumsy investigations and prosecutions.  We desperately need a sensible review of the law in this area.   Read Myles' full post for his own compelling reasoning.

Daryl Champion has written an excellent piece exploring the messy way that the Daily Mail responded to the case.  It is an excellent forensic exploration and worth a read.

Benjamin Gray also has a very interesting piece on his blog exploring the role of the CPS in all of this, suggesting - and I agree in large part - that anger should be focused on the bad law at the heart of the case rather than the CPS themselves.  Read that piece here.

The post can be seen as a response to a mood reflecting on social media and in some media stories such as this piece by Terri Judd published in the Independent, linking together R v Walsh with R v Peacock and the Twitter joke trial (Chambers v DPP). 

R v Walsh: 'Extreme' Pornography on Trial #porntrial

I promised last night to post a full post of my take on the historic R v Walsh decision, and that will follow later today.  I did however want to explain for any non-Twitter followers why I seemed oddly silent during the whole case.  A few people got in touch asking me what my views were and I'm afraid I was less than helpful.  As you've probably now realised, I was an expert witness in the case which prevented me from commenting on what was going on.  Sorry for not being more helpful but I hope you now understand.

There's an excellent summary and analysis of the case from Alex Dymock which makes a really useful initial briefing on things.

You can read a little more in this piece.

This piece examines R v Walsh alongside R v Peacock and asks if the law is 'homophobic'. There's a nice mention of some of my work published earlier this year (those REF chants in my sleep must be paying off).