The announcement follows a meeting earlier this year between
Home Secretary Charles Clarke and Liz Longhurst, who started a
petition for legal reforms to ban violent internet porn after the
brutal murder of her daughter.
Thirty-one year-old Jane Longhurst, a special needs teacher, was
raped and strangled with a pair of tights by a male acquaintance in
2003. Graham Coutts, an amateur musician, attacked her just hours
after surfing the web to feed his apparent obsession with
necrophilia and asphyxial sex. Coutts stored her naked body for 35
days before trying to burn it in woods. He was convicted in
February 2004 and sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison.
Extreme adult websites – those depicting bestiality,
necrophilia, rape or torture – can fall foul of the Obscene
Publications Act in the UK. This Act dates from 1959 and makes it
an offence to publish any article whose effect likely to "deprave
and corrupt" those who see it.
The Act can be used to force ISPs in the UK to remove such
websites; but obscenity laws differ in other countries, where
extreme adult sites are often hosted And while publishing such
material is illegal in the UK, visiting it or possessing such
images is not. This differs from the regulation of child
pornography – where both publication and downloading of the
material are banned.
Home Office spokesman Brendan O'Grady told OUT-LAW today, "We're
looking at ways in which the current law on violent pornographic
sites might be strengthened and we hope to make an announcement
shortly."
He added that the Government has made a lot of progress on
dealing with child pornography and it will look at lessons it can
learn from that. The Home Office is also liaising with other
governments with a view to international cooperation and looking at
possible ways of blocking access to violent porn.
The Home Office is unwilling to confirm at this time that the
law will make illegal the access of violent internet porn. Mr
O'Grady also declined to comment on a report in The Herald
newspaper last week which suggested that the plans will include
changes to the UK's Data Protection Act.
The Herald suggested that the changes might allow credit card
firms to pass on information about individuals who use their cards
to pay for access to such material hosted elsewhere.
The Jane Longhurst Campaign Against Violent Internet Pornography
calls upon the Government and ISPs to take action to block
access to such sites; for an overhaul of the Obscene Publications
Act to make it a criminal offence to possess such images; for
better international cooperation to close down sites hosted abroad;
and for internet images in the UK to be included in the remit of
OFCOM.
According to the BBC, the campaign has received 32,000
signatures so far.
