back to article Holiday snaps? Er, no - criminal porn

Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Nor is it especially clever, if you’re voluntarily handing your PC over to the police to assist them in their inquiries, not to understand the difference between “holiday snaps” and pictures of a criminally pornographic or indecent nature. That, however, was the fairly elementary mistake made …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Watch out J-Pop fans

    Make sure you don't have any photobooks or the attached dvds!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      probably best to avoid anything Japanese

      Did anyone see that program on iPlayer about the teenage girl who accidentally became famous in Japan when she posted a youtube video of herself dancing?

      The dad was such a dick I thought to myself "this man HAS to be a cop" and sure enough the narrator announced that he was. I would have laughed if it wasn't so tragic.

      "as a cop", he would repeatedly tell us, "I'm well aware that the internet was invented by paedophiles to lure children"

      Think that's an exaggeration? Watch the show. I wanted to punch the screen.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        lol

        Beckie Cruel.

        Kozue Aikawa for me k thx, far cuter, got to shake her hand after a danceroid gig w00t lol.

        Backie Cruel's dad is also a money grab git if the documentary is to be believed.

        Actually my buddy was one of the first people to do the lucky star dance thing, he got over 2 million hits lol.

        Yeah also don't get most of AKB's older PV's or latest pv, lots of teen girls jumping, panties showing, songs about the school uniform getting in the way. Damn you youtube provider of CP!

      2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Happy

        AC@11:38

        "as a cop", he would repeatedly tell us, "I'm well aware that the internet was invented* by paedophiles to lure children"

        Is it just me or did sound quite hopeful that *was* what the internet was for?

        *And I don't think the various contributors at BBN and ARPA would be happy with that description of themselves.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Question for her parents.....

        'So, how many times a day do you think your little girl's 'super-fan' wanks off to video's of her dancing in a short skirt?'

  2. paulf
    Coat

    I wonder...

    ...if the dodgy grumble was downloaded from a site that advertises in the Hull Daily "Pure as the driven snow" Mail's escort and dodgy services section*.

    *At the end of the newspaper as far away as possible from the "Holier than thou" section at the front...

    1. LinkOfHyrule
      Joke

      Hell Daily Mail

      the mac daddy of Humberside.

      Mac daddy as in pimp, not Steve Jobs

      And no offence to Hull by saying "Hell Daily Mail" either!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Something rotten...

    ...at work here. As far as I can glean from numerous news reports, Mr Bohling has complained about police procedure in the search for his missing son. That's something worth bearing in mind.

    As for the charges of chil pr0n: clearly utterly ridiculous.

    "When he was interviewed on the first occasion he said he didn't understand that a photograph which wasn't nude in which no sexual activity was depicted could be seen to be indecent."

    http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Missing-student39s-father-admits-porn.6495963.jp

    Chilling, isn't it? Reads like something out of Orwell. Remind me: how much does 2+2 equal, again..?

    Well, I'm sure most ordinary proles would probably echo the sentiment. If a photo - or an entire series of photos - are clearly 'Level 1' they are also clearly non-pornographic. The police will, of course, disagree: having successfully pulled off the trick of convincing British Courts to view a non-pornographic image as 'child pr0n', they know better than anyone how easy it is to get a charge. The 'making' charge is utter drivel, and everyone (apart from the police, apparently) knows it.

    This whole thing stinks. Honestly, does anyone in the police service these days even remember what it was they were supposed to have signed on for? How have they reduced themselves to this squalid state? Did they jump or were they pushed?

    1. feargal halligan
      FAIL

      Yes, but...

      "pornographic" or not, it's still 400 pictures of kids you don't know on your laptop.

      Sure, the cops may be magnifying kids in the background, distorting the focus or whatever, but do you have 400 pictures of kids you don't know on your latop? If it were just these pics I'm not sure I'd feel this way, but in the context of a bunch of animal porn which was bought online... well, I just think a lot of people who are talking about 1984 etc are forgetting the simple fact that - "pornographic" or not, 400 pictures of kids is worth a question or two, certainly IMHO.

      The notion that the british police are on a crusade to convince anyone of anything is a bit simplistic to me, and I honestly don't think that investigating large collections of kiddie pics is somehow a million miles from their job.

      Fact is that even if my best mate was caught out like this, my first question - assuming they weren't planted - would not be "what did you do to anger the cops" it would be "what the fuck were you doing with 400 pics of kids on your hard drive.

      Privacy is one thing, but people abuse privacy just like they abuse kids: to read some comments here it's like people are trying to deny that molesting kids is a problem, people defending right to privacy seem to rather not discuss that aspect and like to frame anyone who does as a hysterical paedophile. IMHO it is not unreasonable to assume that someone with 400 poics of kids he doesn't know might need some help.

      Funnily enough, it's not the law that then proceeds to witch hunt and stigmatise these people: it's the public and the media. I get the impression that it's easier to blame the cops for this situation than the more complex blame that is carried by our messed up society.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Megaphone

        Re: Yes, but...

        "what the fuck were you doing with 400 pics of kids on your hard drive."

        to which the proper retort is "why the fuck is it any of your business?"

        If it's not child porn then he hasn't committed a crime. Simply looking at children is not a crime. It's just not. Doesn't matter whether you look at 4 children or 400 children.

        "to read some comments here it's like people are trying to deny that molesting kids is a problem"

        No one is saying that. Where is the proof that he molested kids? Oh that's right, there isn't any. And in the absence of proof, what are people? Innocent. Say it with me; I - N - N - O - C - E - N - T. That's right.

        We do have proof that certain weird hatted individuals who work for a certain weird cult covered up REAL child molestation but what are we doing about that?

        Oh that's right

        NOTHING.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        Yes, but...

        Be careful. While I'm sure that the police aren't on a crusade to take away all our civil rights, the first question should be 'what's the motivation, and how might that impact what they say, and how they word it.

        I have "dozens, if not hundreds of pictures of children on my hard drive, up the age to 3 years old."

        Family photos of my niece, my sister & my parents, and at least a couple with some toddler friends of my niece (hence justifying use of the word 'children' rather than 'child')

        But see how they could spin it if they wanted to?

        If a mate of mine was caught out like this, my first question would be 'What really happened in there? Tell me your side of the story!'...

        Sure, he may be a secret kiddie fiddler, but I wouldn't assume that without giving him a chance to explain himself first...

        1. TimeMaster T
          Flame

          OK ...

          "While I'm sure that the police aren't on a crusade to take away all our civil rights"

          You haven't really been paying attention have you?

      3. A J Stiles
        FAIL

        I call bull

        "I just think a lot of people who are talking about 1984 etc are forgetting the simple fact that - 'pornographic' or not, 400 pictures of kids is worth a question or two"

        Bullshit.

        There is no more evidence that looking at pictures of children leads people to abuse children, than there is evidence that looking at pictures of sports cars leads people to break the speed limit, or evidence that looking at pictures of bottles of booze leads people to become alcoholics. Or evidence that looking at pictures of famous adults leads people to become stalkers.

        Hell, even if the guy was getting his rocks off, *as long as it was only into a box of tissues* then I can't really find that objectionable. As long as it was only into a box of tissues.

        "Funnily enough, it's not the law that then proceeds to witch hunt and stigmatise these people: it's the public and the media."

        Yes. It's people like *you* that try to imply guilt by association, "Oh, the guy must be a pervert", making us all afraid of our own shadows. (44% of men and 28% of women would think twice about helping a child in distress: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-10820033 -- meaning, if anything, that a child in distress is now *more* likely to be "helped" by an undesirable. And they are just the ones who aren't afraid of looking selfish in a survey.)

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        erm

        "but in the context of a bunch of animal porn which was bought online"

        Er, if I read the article right, it was bought online, but by someone ELSE.

        He snaffled a copy of it, no evidence or suggestion that money changed hands.

      5. Intractable Potsherd
        WTF?

        @ Feargal

        YOU are an example of the "more complex blame that is carried by our messed up society". Children are meant to be attractive (in the sense of kittens and flowers) to humans - we are genetically programmed to find them so. Our "messed up society" has managed to turn that into a general sign of wrongness. People are now afraid to show care and consideration to children in public - that is way beyond "messed up", old boy.

        1. Scorchio!!

          Yup

          Indeed. My niece wanted a piggy back from me on Friday. I refused and would not be persuaded, precisely because of the past 13 years of state snooping (by CCTV, the use of RIPA etcetera) by a government which has increasingly restricted the civil rights of its electorate in a manner that has horrified watchers across Europe and the US. A state in which a police officer calls in social services because a woman is decorating her house, and it does not look to his eye to be suitable for her children, a state in which elderly folk on a beach are reported for photography that might also encompass the children playing there, a state in which schools explicitly ban parents from using cameras because of the use to which the photographs might be put.

          Why not simply ban all photography of kids? This is almost as bad as the burkha. The coincidence of small minded people in the executive with small minded people in the legislature is making this country a bed of nails.

      6. Anonymous Coward
        Big Brother

        Ummm...

        I would struggle to think of why a person would want 400 pictures of children they don't know on their computer, but there may be valid reasons. I have a fair few pictures of people I don't know on mine. Partly pictures of cute Asians (though, TBH, I don't quite "get" the whole idol thing so I tend to look for those that are old enough to be a potential girlfriend, not my daughter!), but I also have a number of images of children (not revealing, I might point out) because when writing stories and such I find a face helps to visualise better. No idea (nor much interest) who the original is, if I see a picture on-line that I like the look of (male, female, young and old - it is NOT a sexual thing) then I save a copy and invent their backstory...

        ...the point, however, that I'd like to get to is before our messed up society does its knee-jerk witch-hunt routine, it would be really good to get actual hard statistics on how many internet paedophiles are actually known about (convicted or not), and then relate that with how many children are abused by their own parents/uncles/brothers/step-fathers and other assorted family members. And while we're at it, don't just stop with daddy sticking his dick where it oughtn't ever go, include also those oh-so-loving parents that trot out "you're useless, you never do anything right" day after day after day...

        AC, because some people with more power than intelligence are pretty good at seeing what they want to see and disregarding the rest.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      police

      When my TV was stolen I reported it to the police. They came round to "look for evidence" but when they got here they took one look at the spot where the TV used to be and arrested me for "being in possession of an area of free space likely to be useful for bomb making".

      True story.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Coat

        AC@14:37

        "They came round to "look for evidence" but when they got here they took one look at the spot where the TV used to be and arrested me for "being in possession of an area of free space likely to be useful for bomb making"."

        This didn't have anything to do with "Possession of a dark skin and full beard"?

        You can guess what's on my DVD.

    3. Andy 3

      Re: Something rotten...

      An insciption above the entrance to the Old Bailey reads:

      “Defend the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer.”

      The police and justice system have not forgotten what they signed up for. Perhaps it is you that have forgotten right from wrong?

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Coat

        @Andy 3

        I think you'll find it reads "Punishment to the evil doer, justice for the children of the poor."

        That is a fact. The rest is your opinion.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Something rotten...

      While I gave your comment a thumbs up, because I agree with the broad sentiment, there's something I don't quite agree with:-

      "If a photo - or an entire series of photos - are clearly 'Level 1' they are also clearly non-pornographic."

      That's not actually the case (depending on what's meant by "pornographic", and assuming you mean "indecent"). The Protection of Children Act 1978 criminalises possession of indecent photographs and pseudo-photographs of children, and indecency doesn't have to be limited to just what's pornographic.

      While there are SAP level 1 images that aren't indecent, there are also SAP level 1 images that are indecent.

      SAP level 1: "Images depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity."

      SAP level 2: "Non-penetrative sexual activity between children, or solo masturbation by a child."

      Erotic posing can be clothed as well as unclothed. Flashing knickers could be an example. So could posing nude, with legs spread and labia majora spread apart for a clearer view, as long as it's not then "solo masturbation" (as that would then be level 2).

      But does "erotic" automatically mean "indecent"? No, of course not.

      A 17-year-old striking a sexy pose in sexy underwear may well count as "erotic posing" without being indecent. Think, for example, of a teenager going to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the local flea pit, dressed accordingly, and not indecently exposing herself while doing so. And think of that same teenager putting up some photos of that fun night out up on Facebook.

      But a 9-year-old, posed to show underwear in a series of photographs that would otherwise be recognisable as "non-nude porn" in the case of, say, Tiffany Teen? Does that child understand why they're being posed in such ways? Would they agree to such "modelling" if they really understood what it's for? Is it not a mild form of abuse? Are such images really not indecent?

      I remember, in infant school, that the game of "knicker chase" was not allowed, because it was "dirty". But we did PE lessons in nothing but our underwear - vests and knickers for the girls, who were then showing more than when caught in "knicker chase". In secondary school, teachers made us all take all our clothes off in front of each other. Showers after PE wouldn't have been quite so effective at rinsing the sweat off our bodies, otherwise.

      Context and purpose are relevant to determining whether or not photographs are indecent.

      According to the article:-

      "The images were accessed after payment was made by credit card and then downloaded onto a third party's computer. Bohling subsequently copied the files to his computer.

      According to prosecutor Karen Quintick, appearing in Beverley Magistrates’ Court earlier this week, the first set of images were "of young children and pre-teens wearing clothes and posing to reveal their underwear"."

      Sounds like "non-nude porn", but with children. As abuse, it might be very mild, but still an inappropriate way to commercially exploit children. Sounds like a case of the Protection of Children Act 1978 being applied as originally intended.

      But, having said all that, I do agree that we shouldn't be criminalising possession of non-indecent images simply because we don't like the possessor's thoughts. While the original purpose of posing a child in a particular way may well contribute to making the subsequent image indecent, I don't agree that an otherwise non-indecent image can magically become indecent by being looked at "in the wrong kind of way". We shouldn't be criminalising paedophiles for being paedophiles. That's why I was inclined to give your comment a thumbs up.

    5. henrydddd
      Thumb Down

      Intepretation

      In the US, child pornography laws were expanded to include sexually provocative shots (no sex acts involved). The people pushing for this law change reassured parents that they would not be prosecuted for having bath tub shots and the like. The interpretation of this laws now includes all frontal nudity. In the US people have been sent to prison and classified as sex offenders for having bath tub shots of themselves! Children are being classified as sex offenders for sending nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves to each other. In this case the victim is being punished. Laws are needed to protect children from predators, but somehow things have gone too far the other way in some cases.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      re - something rotten

      Your rant is funny - reads like some conspiracy theory.

      You've choosen to read this with your blinkers on and paid no attention to what's actually been said. The reg has put out the bait and you've swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

      LMFAO

  4. alphaxion

    something I don't get

    We see "ignorance of the law is no excuse" often trotted out to slam the book of law at some idiot, yet politico's get to use this very excuse to get off scott free and only have to apologise for very serious cases of fraud, corruption and abuse of position!

    How can that be? Surely they should be getting a spanking by the law just like this dimwitted fellow.

    1. Hud Dunlap
      Paris Hilton

      You mean like photos from laptops??

      He should have worked for the school board in the the U.S.. Obviously there was no criminal intent.

      Paris, because she tried that angle on here violation of probation conviction. I think she said " I just sign what people tell me to sign".

  5. Natalie Gritpants

    I may not be Poirot

    but I can guarantee that his missing son wasn't inside the PC.

  6. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

    Understand the law? How!

    Whilst I in no way condone this person possessing these pictures, this story indicates how difficult it is to live in the modern world.

    Ignorance of the law is no protection, but if this is the case, surely there is an onus on the government to make sure that the most pertinent features of existing and new laws are publicised to give people a chance to comply?

    A case in point is the Coroners and Justice act 2009 (I think), which has been discussed often in these forums, which is largely unknown to almost everyone that I talk to in my social circles. This includes a significant number of family friends (mainly of my daughter) who have an interest in mainstream manga and animé.

    I'm sure that there are titles that are regularly stocked on the shelves of high street book sellers that contain pictures of seemingly young people (often, but not exclusively girls) in compromising positions. And the fact that they are drawings makes no difference to the legislation. Even if the worst of the titles are removed from the shelves, there will be copies in peoples private collections or in the second hand market.

    Why are there not warnings on the bookshelves, Amazon, and everywhere else people who may have such titles will see to check their collections?

    And I am still not clear about how the law can be operated. If you take general landscape pictures on a beach where young children are playing, and without any intent, capture an image of a child in a state of undress where the child is in an accidentally provocative pose (like falling on their back at the moment that the picture was taken), this picture may fall foul of the law.

    Now don't get me wrong, I do not often take pictures on the beach, even though I live in a seaside town. But I could not guarantee that in the 1000's of pictures I have taken over the years, that I do not have something like that either on paper, negative, or stored on CD-ROM.

    And things that may have been regarded as totally innocent 60 or 70 years ago, even in quite prudish times, may also fall foul of this legislation. Acquiring such pictures before the legislation came into effect is no defence either.

    So how many of us have checked our photo collections? I know I was shocked to find that one of my archive CD's has pictures taken using my first digital camera, which I let my two youngest sons play with when they were about 6 and 4. Some of these pictures are explicitly of their nether regions, taken I presume for a giggle, in the way that young kids do. I copied them wholesale without checking to CD and backed up this CD several times as I added to the collection. This means I now have pictures of undressed young boys scattered around on numerous disks. I doubt I could find all of them even if I tried. Am I a criminal? How can I prove that I did not take the pictures, or even that they are of my own kids?

    In this, and several other instances, the law is definitely an ass, and so open to interpretation that I pity the poor defendants who get dragged in to cases that are taken to court to try to set precedent.

    1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Damn, and damn.

      Meant to AC my previous comment, but what the heck. It's fairly innocuous.

      Hang on, who's that beating down my door?

      CDs and DVDs officer? Yes, I have several hundred scattered around. Where do you want to start? Oh! you want to take them all away! Can I have a receipt please? And please note the ones you can't read are not encrypted, they're almost certainly ones that have failed to burn, and I forgot to throw away. No. Really. They don't have encryption keys for them. No. NO. Not the cuffs!

      Help. Call a lawyer!

      1. TimeMaster T
        Flame

        Title!

        "Meant to AC my previous comment"

        Funny that ...

        You actually felt the need to hide your identity while pointing out how the current laws can be used against innocent people.

        Isn't it about time people started doing something about this? How many peoples lives will be destroyed before the rest of us get outraged enough to actually do something?

        Not anon, because I'm not going to hide because I'm afraid of what might happen if I disagree with Big Brother.

      2. TimeMaster T
        Flame

        Title!

        "Meant to AC my previous comment"

        Funny that ...

        You actually felt the need to hide your identity while pointing out how the current laws can be used against innocent people.

        Isn't it about time people started doing something about this? How many peoples lives will be destroyed before the rest of us get outraged enough to actually do something?

        Not anon, because I'm not going to hide because I'm afraid of what might happen if I disagree with Big Brother.

        And for the record, I am afraid.

        Of our governments. More afraid in fact of them than I am of terrorists.

        1. heyrick Silver badge

          @ Timemaster T

          Indeed, in this past decade it has become quite clear that the terrorists have won their battle against us.

          No, not the ones living in sand dunes with different beliefs...

          ...the ones that hang out in Washington and Westminster and forgot the whole "of the people and for the people" ethos a long long time ago.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Innuendo

      In many of the cases where people are done for kiddy pics, they are nailed for 16 specimen charge images, but it is often mentioned by the police that they had tens/hundreds of thousands of images in total. But the phrasing of this sometimes suggests that the larger number images were not at all of the same nature, and that the police are using the mention of the mass of images to insinuate they are the same as the specimen images - "painting a picture" if you will - or perhaps just that someone with such an unhealthy interest in smut is worth banging up any way.

      Like you, I've got CD backups that go way back to the early days of the net, when I just used to chuck the contents of the HD onto a CD, including the browser cache. Given the wilder nature of the web in the late 90s and the wall to wall ads for smut on just about any page that made it into Yahoo's keyword stuffed top 100, I dread to think what might have ended up in those browser caches without my ever seeing the images in question, and I'd think I'm far from the only one who has no idea whats lurking in their archive.

      How guy in this case thought "holiday snaps" of other peoples kids with their kit off was OK, I really don't know. But the line between what is OK or strictly legal and what isn't seems to move depending on whether you've had an axe to grind with the police. By nailing people because they don't like the cut of their jib the law seriously devalues the severity of those genuine cases they rightly pursue vigorously and contributes to the Daily Fail hysterical fearmongering that every male between 30-100 is an evil kiddy fiddler that just hasn't been caught yet.

  7. Rogerborg

    To be fair to the disgusting kiddie fiddler

    Pictures taken from the front row of a Pussycat Dolls or Miley Cyrus concert would likely be "level 1".

    No? Take a high res picture, crop out the few bits that aren't gyrating crotch and sweaty sweater-meat, and they'd be indistinguishable from a low res perv-zoom shot. I said "ZOOM" shot, you filthy beggars.

    I guess it's OK if you do your perving in a crowd though.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Naked Children!

    Remind me not to go to church - the last time I was there I saw images of naked children on the ceiling and a statue of some guy who's had his skin flayed off him ... and what's the the dude nailed to the sticks - he's almost completely naked!

    Oh, think of the Children.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Puzzled by this...

    This puzzles me:

    I'm a graphic designer by trade, and a BDSM freak by nature. I often describe myself as a "pervert" and was - justifiably I think - quite worried by the invasive powers of the extreme pornography act which appears to threaten my right to tie up and beat my wife and acquaintances and then photograph these acts.

    But despite my trade and sexual proclivities, I don't even have 400 pornographic pictures, period. Certainly not the 25,000 that the teacher in mnachester had - that's IMHO an outrageous amount of material. And - strangely enough - I don't have *any* pictures of minors whatsoever, barring those of my nieces and nephews and friends' kids who - surprise surprise - aren't showing their fucking underwear, posing provocatively or anything of the sort.

    I'd think of myself as the most liberal you can be without becoming pointlessly radical, basically, and I believe extremely strongly in peoples' right to consensual whateverthefucktheywant: yes, even cannibalism, once tests of mental stability are passed, is a permissable consensual act in my opinion: you want to do it, then sign the forms, do the interviews, and chow down (you mad bastard, you)

    But I just cannot understand where people get the notion that downloading pics of kids is okay: or indeed animals. How people can keep collections of hundred of images of kids showing their underwear and not think it's a problem is beyond me. Kids - and animals - cannot consent, and while I do not thing you are WRONG or EVIL I just don't get why you can't realise that you need help to live in a civilised society.

    In many ways, I think it underlines how completely fucked up so-called normal sexuality is in this world - something that us BDSM people actually find unnerving and a bit disgusting.

    But really: "my collection of 400 pics of kids showing their underwear is completely innocent and normal"?

    Really? People think that? And please, don't give me that "they're not molexting anyone" routine: people who believe they're napoleon aren't hurting anyone either, but they still need help because inevitably their way of thinking is going to cause problems.

    But hey, I'm a wierdo, maybe that's just me...

    1. Bob Wheeler
      Thumb Up

      Spot On

      Hey feller, I think your spot on with this.

      Some folks like football, some go to church, other get the whips and chains out - a big so what as long as you don't come around to my house to watch football etc.

      Certainly since the advent of digital camrars it is now so easy to take your holiday snaps by the thousand rather then the old fashioned roll of 36 kodak moments. I could not say how many holiday/party/family photos I have now but in the best prat of 10 years it is in thousands. Almost without fail I could name just about every one on those photos, or at least put the photo into social context.

      However, I'm a building freak - I love odd/quaint/unusal buildings and I take a photo of a house or building as and when I see one I like. But and this is the point, I have about 2 or 3 dozen assorted photos of buildings, not 25,000. But I guess I don't have to worry as I've never seen a building posing yet!

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Happy

        @Bob Wheeler

        "Some folks like football, some go to church, other get the whips and chains out - a big so what as long as you don't come around to my house to watch football etc."

        Actually you might find some people do *all* three (although not at the same time).

    2. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      So am I but for different reasons

      "How people can keep collections of hundred of images of kids showing their underwear and not think it's a problem is beyond me......it underlines how completely fucked up so-called normal sexuality is in this world - something that us BDSM people actually find unnerving and a bit disgusting."

      Well, I can't tell for everyone but I consider myself pretty "normal" sexually and I too find these things unnerving and disgusting, so BDSM people do not have monopoly on that.

      But I'm also puzzled: why does it seem that anytime anyone's computer appears in the possession of the police they find child porn images on it (especially if it belongs to a teacher)?

      Are they all being framed by the police? Is it because of selective publicity in the media? Or is it because we have much higher proportion of paedophiles in the society than we would have thought otherwise?

      If it's the latter - we (collectively) must be doing something very wrong because we seem to be in denial.

      I am quite sure that the proportion of paedophiles among people should stay pretty much constant throughout the time, just like that of other mental illnesses (unless there are factors involved such as some kind of mass poisoning/mutation etc).

      That means that if we see a lot of paedophiles now there were lots of paedophiles before, always. Yet, we are still here and the society has not collapsed. That means in turn that most of the paedophiles are not trying to act out on their fantasies.

      So does it make sense to seek out and prosecute these latent/passive paedos if they are not the ones doing the damage? Why not leave them be but concentrate on those who actually abuse children, those who make the photos (and not those who only look at them)? Why not let the passive ones to quietly draw their fantasies on paper and in CGI but crash like a proverbial ton of bricks on those who physically molests children?

      It seems to me that the authorities are doing exactly the opposite - going for the easy target, "low hanging fruit", the capture of which gives them opportunities to announce major victories, to stage high-profile prosecutions of small fish while the real sharks keep swimming in the deep.

      I have a big problem with such approach.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Some sense at last

        (sorry I'm the BDSM AC from above, who's probably gonna forget to click the anymous box any minute now...!)

        This is a much more interesting point, and invloves the kind of shades of grey where the police are just being lazy - I find this easier to believe. IMHO the term "paedophile" implies a discrete set of symptoms and defined behaviour, and doesn't really exist - all you have is varying degrees of poorly controlled impulsive behaviour, which at the thick end of the wedge amounts to being monstrous.

        My simple answer is I don't know: it's not simple, is it? We could be dealing with a horrific and underground human trait (which I doubt) or simply the psychological detritus of our extremely repressed and messed up society. What people can't discuss really festers - so it's hard to talk in terms of how many "paedos" that there "are" without talking about contributing factors.

        I think the biggest point though is that if *we* - society in general - weren't so fucking lazy, and didn't bother our arses trying to actually understand what the problem is, rather than bundling it all into the "lynch them" box, then the actions of the police wouldn't be such a huge problem:

        But the thing is it works that way in all areas: a burglar - probably the smallest fry in terms of crime that damages society - pays the most and generally will never work again. Just because they're not listed on a register doesn't mean that they're victimised despite being in a sense predators.

        Okay I'll shut up now and go eat lunch.

        1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

          Here we go again

          An article appeared on BBC an hour ago:

          QUOTE:

          Two teachers have been arrested in the West Midlands on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children.

          The men, aged 37 and 43, who teach at separate Solihull schools, were arrested in Monkspath, Solihull. Both have been suspended.

          A police spokesman said: "At this stage... there is nothing to suggest any physical contact between the suspects and the children."

          They were bailed for further inquiries and for seized property to be examined.

          Solihull Borough Council will shortly be contacting parents whose children attend the schools to inform them directly of the arrests, the police spokesman added.

          UNQUOTE:

          Hardly a day goes by now without some child-porn related case appearing in the news. Are these two active abusers who made the pictures themselves or are they passive sexually-confused pictures-watchers? Have they done real harm or is the harm being done by publicly exposing them and in the process traumatising children and parents?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            FAIL

            Paedos are all the same

            Can people stop asking stupid questions along the lines of 'if someone just possesses indecent or pornographic images of children but they are just looking at them, is that harmful to society?'?

            I'm not a child pathologist or psychologist, but we can probably assume that, with hindsight, most children (probably all of them), if they had an enlighted choice, would not choose to be paedo material. At worst, we can probably assume that most children who are used as paedo material are upset and/or damaged by it in some fundamental way so that their later life is scarred by the experience at best.

            I think I am also going to assume that not every single one of the images that was on this chap's pc was purely 'incidental' and not 'deliberate' (i.e. organised) porn, made by professional paedos, the sort of which most people would class as evil, dispicable, etc.

            Therefore, he has (indirectly, since he has in effect encouraged his friend, who is a funder of child porn) supported the whole evil industry, even if he's only the mildest of offenders. I say they were right to charge him and let it be a warning to other supporters of the child porn industry, even if they are on the bottom-rung of the child porn ladder.

        2. Scorchio!!

          Definitions

          Paedophilia means 'love of children'. In neuropharmacology we speak of hydrophilia and hydrophobia knowing what it means, precisely because some chemicals are attracted to and other repelled by water. Then there's lipophilia, and so on. It is not a reference to behaviour, and that is where the problem begins; paedophilia is a state of mind. Removing gonads does not work, since the job of sensitising areas of brain occurs around the time of puberty. Removing the orchids after maturity is a literal case of locking the door after the offender has bolted. So called chemical castration does work, to an extent, but has some pretty repulsive 'side effects'.

          As to the age of majority, as was observed earlier, it was increased to 16 in response to the Victorian problem of child prostitution. The other poster also made reference to, e.g., the age of consent in Spain being 14, and there are many other variations. Given recent prosecutions of children for rape the question, which was also raised, of sex between, say, a 16 year old girl and a 14 year old boy merits consideration. Because we have begun to define so many things, it being that laws are being applied to almost every part of our lives, there is now little room left for, well, for what? For those instances in which a 16 year old girl has sex with a 14 year old boy, and the cascade of exceptions that tumble out of the legal barrel along with this one when it is pulled out for examination.

          This is what happens when governments destroy centuries of case law by writing law. These people wanted to give us a constitution; unlike the British approach to law, a mixture of legislation and case law which, over centuries, builds a stable yet flexible approach to change and only applies negative law (these are the things you cannot do, the things that are illegal), constitutional law applies positive law; these are the things that you can do. It stops there, like a cliff in the middle of your path. Go over it and you stand a reasonable chance of being prosecuted.

          The last government became my enemy when they monkeyed around with the law, and these people *are* lawyers. Never forget.

    3. Bryce 2

      You're puzzled?

      I'm more puzzled by your attitude. I personally find it disturbing that you enjoy tying up and beating your wife. To me, that is not normal. You also take photos of this as well. I would be of the opinion that you would need help because use violence in your relationships.

      I don't agree with what you do, but I'll defend your right to do it.

      On the other hand, I am also of the opinion that if you don't actually DO something, how can you be guilty of doing it?

      There have been more than a few books feeaturing nude children in them - just ask Brooke Shields - as well as movies with nude *gasp* underaged children in them - again ask Brooke Shields - and none of those were ever considered *illegal*... they would be now however.

      Unless someone actually ACTS on their thoughts, what are they guilty of?

  10. TkH11

    Idiot

    He handed the computer to the Police knowing there were images on there despite the consequences for himself....the guy is an idiot. Delete them first then, at least give yourself a chance at not getting caught!

    We all know they can recover deleted images unless more advanced precautions are taken but the Police would have been looking for websites accessed, emails etc.

    One thing you can never ever do, is trust the Police. May be you think yo are helping them find your child, but at the end of the day, any chance to screw you, and they will take it. Always do.

    1. Dave Bell

      It's strange

      OK, the police want photographs of the missing person.

      They might want photographs taken at about the same time, to see if they spot anyone known to them (that feels a little far-fetched, but it would justify wanting to see a full roll of holiday snaps on film).

      But why the whole computer?

      (And giving it to the police pretty well eliminates the assumption of privacy.)

  11. Bob Wheeler
    Grenade

    Would You

    If you have a set of photos etc on your computer, that you have no problem showing to your wife/gf/mother then it's a safe bet the pic's are dodgy.

    If on the other hand you'd never want your wife/gf let alone your mother seeing them. then hit the big DELETE key etc etc etc.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "like"

    "Like" a holiday snap? Where did he go on holiday? Thailand?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @BDSM AC

    Oh, Hello Simon. very sensible comments, BTW.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Heart

      LMAO

      Hee hee hee, no my name isn't simon, you must be thinking of some other pervert ;-)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: Puzzled by this...

    you don't have to hit Ctrl+S to have a copy of an image on your HDD. Nor does deleting your internet history from within the browser erase data on the disk. Once you include stuff that's not indexed by the file system I bet it's a lot easier than you think to rack up 25,000 images. I recently used foremost to recover data from a drive where the file system was irreparably damaged and it's amazing the quantity of stuff you turn up.

    I'm not sure to what extent a user can be said to "possess" an image if they have gone out of their way to delete it and don't have the technical skills to recover it but I'm pretty sure the law doesn't take niceties like that into account. I'm pretty sure that anything the forensic bods can pull off the disk can be said to have been in the possession of the disks owner.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "you don't have to hit Ctrl+S to have a copy of an image on your HDD"

    Hey look, I'm not an idiot - again, credit card payments and transfers from other computers were specifically mentioned: I'm just not buying this "it's a trap" thing is all.

    For all we know it could be planted, I'm just going by what the aricle said.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Happy

      AC@14:37

      I think the CC were for the zoo porn.

      And they say sheep don't tell.

  16. Bernard M. Orwell
    Big Brother

    @feargal halligan

    "Fact is that even if my best mate was caught out like this, my first question - assuming they weren't planted - would not be "what did you do to anger the cops" it would be "what the fuck were you doing with 400 pics of kids on your hard drive."

    Its a very good question, that, let me provide some answers.....

    The Police: "Clearly he's a filthy pedo 'cos there are kids in all these pictures. Yeah, we had to zoom a few of them up, do a bit of photoshopping to and sharpen some of the depth of field issues out, but he had hundreds of them. I bet he's planning to fiddle with them all, or likes to think about it at least. Besides, we couldn't get him on the drugs/parking/drunk & disorderly charge, so this'll do nicely to buff up our stats for the week. Nicked, my son."

    Your mate: "Erm, these are photos I took in the street. My camera wasn't pointing at the kids, they just happen to be in the shots! Look, all the kids are clothed for starters and if their underwear is showing in some shots thats because they're kids and kids jump around, roll around, play with their clothes or are generally untidy by nature. I don't even KNOW any of these kids. Isn't it the case that something like 7 of 8 instance of child abuse are perpetrated by relatives and friends?!"

    Speaking as a dad of a three year old daughter, this whole scenario bothers me greatly. My wife keeps thousands of photos of our daughter in all sorts of situations, including some shots of her in the bath or playing half-dressed etc. She even posts some to Facebook.

    I, on the other hand, flat refuse to keep even a SINGLE shot for fear of repurcussions should I fall afoul of the law in another way (I'm a fairly active political protestor/activist). It's only a matter of time, I believe, before the so called "law" makes the intuitive leap to "Hang on, those are candid pictures of your own children and most abuse is carried out be relatives!", then it won't matter whether you have pictures of your own children, other children, dressed, undressed, in focus etc. etc. You'll be guilty simply for having pictures, drawings or text referring to children.

    The state are taking control of us by inches, and they have begun with our children.

    1. Scorchio!!

      Statism.

      Hush. Hate hour is about to start, and we must now screech at Emmanuel Goldstein before taking some Librium or soma (choose your toxin).

  17. Blofeld's Cat
    Unhappy

    Child porn bad - Missing teenager very bad.

    They found his images but did they find his kid?

    Have I misunderstood this story?

  18. The Other Steve
    Coat

    "Like" holiday snaps ?

    In what way, precisely, is having 400 pictures of other people's kids pouting and showing their pants in any way like holiday snaps ? (Apart from anything else, you don't generally need to download your own holiday snaps from a dodgy internet site using your credit card - which is what gives the game way isn't it ? It might be mild kiddie pr0n, but if you're paying for it, it is definitely kiddy pr0n.)

    And in what world is that a perfectly innocent thing for a person to have stored in their PC ?

    And in what universe is it a sensible thing to do to hand that PC over to the cops when it also contains your collection of eye watering dog and horse pr0n ?

    Whichever way you look at it, it's probably a good job that this chap has come to the attention of the authorities - it's clearly way past time for someone to clue him up on current social taboos*. He certainly needs to have a long conversation with his wife, assuming she's still talking to him, and he needs to bone up (fnar) on data privacy.

    Pr0n has become practically acceptable in polite conversation of late, kiddies and animals, not so much.

    *sharp eyed pr0n fans will no doubt have noticed that despite what the chap might say, he is clearly getting off on the violation of exactly these taboos, of course.

    Mines the dirty mac.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Food for thought

    To paraphrase an American comic with some intelligence (believe it or not!);

    In many years of using the internet in various guises, from old newsgroup days, I've never seen any child pr0n. Ever. Yet apparently it's "rife" on the internet. I've seen all sorts of other strange things, most often not asked for, and some of these really bizarre activities I've seen several times. If I've managed to be subjected to images of cock-fingering many times, yet never once have I witnessed anything close to sexual material involving minors, yet such material is apparently all over the internet, then cock-fingering is probably occurring in my office at this precise moment.

    (Thanks, Mr Stanhope)

    You cannot get 400 images of children in provocative poses without going out and looking for it. Regardless of how broad your one-handed browsing might be, that amount of images isn't going to just materialise on your machine without having gone to certain lengths to find them. As far as the inter-species erotica goes, that's just ridiculous. Claiming ignorance of the law in that sort of situation isn't a valid excuse - if you don't understand why owning that is wrong, you should be given a little jacket with long sleeves, and removed from the rest of society for our own good.

    1. Bryce 2

      @Food for thought

      I wonder how easy it would be to disprove this statement by using one of three websites.

      www.facebook.com

      www.myspace.com

      www.youtube.com

      Thoughts?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Your food is unappealing.

      Look, I like Doug Stanhope as much as the next guy but you're missing the point.

      For one thing without seeing the photographs you can't say what was 'erotic' about them. The pictures aren't available to us via this lovely website so any conclusions reached about them will have been jumped to.

      For another it's unclear what 'erotic' means in this context. I 'posed' in my underwear for my parents, who thought me adorable and loved me more for it. Does this make them paedos and me abused? Nope. Was it erotic? Not for me, nor my parents. For someone else though? I dunno. I guess.

      For yet another it's unclear how the police or judiciary come to a decision about these matters. The fact that the word 'erotic' isn't defined in law makes for a problem because one has to judge whether or not a picture is erotic without necessarily becoming aroused oneself. To my knowledge judges don't have access to an on-call paedophile who'll tell them whether /they/ find the photo erotic, and even if they did paedophilia is subject to matters of personal preference - what is erotic for one may not be erotic for others. In addition straight-out comparisons of pictures taken of children with pictures taken of adults can produce very misleading results.

      Anyway, one presumes there are guidelines for judging this kind of thing? Someone please tell me there are some guidelines and we've not let judges decide this for themselves. History shows they don't tend to do well when left to their own devices.

      "Regardless of how broad your one-handed browsing might be, that amount of images isn't going to just materialise on your machine without having gone to certain lengths to find them."

      It all depends on the meaning of 'erotic'. 'Erotic' photos may be easy to come by, or not. Who can say with a NULL term?

      "Claiming ignorance of the law in that sort of situation isn't a valid excuse"

      Regardless of the situation it's never an excuse or legal defense. We all understand why this is: It's so that little Johnny Scrote can't stand up in court and say "I know I punched that old bloke for his money, but I didn't know you can't do that" and get away with it. Regardless of whether you know about it or not though, it's still not clear what the law means in practice. Are adverts for children's bathing-wear indecent, for example? What about a picture of a baby next to a picture of a dildo? What if the dildo is really tiny and the baby really huge?

      "if you don't understand why owning that is wrong, you should be given a little jacket with long sleeves, and removed from the rest of society for our own good."

      Owning what? Some photos the judge thought was indecent, but who's the judge? Is he an odious idiot with a sense of entitlement who went to law school to follow in daddy's footstep and drives up behind you at the speed of light in his Jag flashing his headlights because he's in a hurry, or a careful studier who works hard for a living, obeys the laws he presumes to judge, is humble because when it comes down to it he knows he's no better than anyone else, or what?

      This is the core problem with a justice system which requires people to make judgements: People make mistakes. Just like Roger Bohling did when attempting to assist the police.

      1. Scorchio!!

        Preconceptions

        In their responses quite a few posters appear to have engaged in 'perceptual filling'. That is they have read 'erotic poses' when it is far from clear that they were, and I see no clear statement to the effect that these were 'erotic poses'. No definition was given and no comparison between it and the alleged 'erotic poses' in the photographs was made, no clear and distinct analysis and point scoring method applied, such that one could say anything with clarity. What were the definitions? By what objective procedures did anyone arrive at a clear and distinct conclusion? Where and what are the data? Do they conform to a standard accepted by a significant majority of scientists, are they accepted as sound scientific practise? None of these things has been mentioned yet.

        In some cases what I read this morning are the preconceptions of posters plus a rake of argumentum ad hominem (suggesting that peoples' responses have been more visceral than logical), lining up with their metaphorical rope in hand, accepting the words of one or two people whose probity is unquestioned, whose evidence is as far as I can see unchallenged, reminding me of the never ending debate:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_Witch_Trials

        There have been quite a few other cases that were later turned out, in which bogus 'evidence' was employed. Recently a RN Petty Officer was prosecuted on the basis of some unfounded witterings by a clinical psychologist who later herself said that they were not sufficient grounds for conviction. Why she wittered I do not know, but I am certain that she will learn to sing either more quietly or more circumspectly.

        In addition I would also point readers at the Broxtowe cases (read the JET report), the Shetland island cases, the psychiatrist Marietta Higgs, who felt that the 'anal dilation reflex' to be diagnostic of child sexual abuse and thus sound *evidence* in the Cleveland scandal, the McMartin cases, the Wenatchee cases, and many other moral panics on child sexual abuse, in which the words of trusted public/law enforcement officials, trusted prosecutors and state employed expert witnesses were taken without question, and people were wrongfully imprisoned for the sexual abuse of children. When the kids grew up some of them made it clear that the charges were bullshit. One victim of this process was assaulted and her genitals cut with a knife, wielded by a citizen vigilante (it is the case that people wrongly supposed to be paedophiles have been murdered in this country, it is the case that one paedophile was murdered by means of arson applied to his house, and the young girl with him also died with him), it is the case that the indiscriminate stupidity of not very bright people resulted in a paediatric surgeon being harassed and threatened, her front door painted and torched. All of this on the basis of what people 'thought' rather than on the basis of any objective and scientific analysis of *evidence*.

        New Labour started off a number of business ventures, including home information packs. It's been one gorgeous and very long baggage train, populated by carpet baggers such as Harman, Hewitt, friends and fellow travellers, who said that men cannot be trusted with children and thus probably ought not to be allowed near them in schools, and that men are not necessary in the family.

        Hewitt et al. offered *no* evidence to substantiate their claims, certainly none that I as a scientist with a variety of qualifications, in molecular and forensic science, would find even slightly acceptable; au contraire, evidence has been available since at least 1993, when Michelle Elliot's book about 'female sexual abuse, the ultimate taboo[...]' was published, showing that *women* DO sexually abuse. There is also a good deal of evidence demonstrating non sexual physical abuse and mental torture is carried out by women but, because the labour party because are prone to ascertainment/confirmation bias (as some of us here appear to be), we are now left chasing our tails and snapping at one another.

        Meanwhile, we are also left to pick up the tab for the labour party's squandering of large sums of money in times of hardship, to the point where even civil servants utilised the exceptional (legitimate and time honoured) tactic of making ministers sign off on such wasteful and pointless expenditure, it being they wished to distance themselves from it and wished to avoid prosecution, and thus would not accept responsibility for such wanton stupidity.

        I look forward to the day when these ghastly creatures are prosecuted for their wars, for their destruction of our state, for their secret immigration agenda (which conflicted with their stated aims in their 1997 manifesto and thus mandate for 'strict control' of immigration), and a host of other things, including leaving us here snapping at one another over such things as the current subject, now considerably muddied by their shoddy, unclear, catch-all legislation.

        These are the people to blame, for their lack of intellectual clarity and rigour, and for their intemperate political correctness.

  20. malenfant

    Re: Food for thought

    >You cannot get 400 images of children in provocative poses without going out and looking for it.

    Ever browsed /b?

    Actually I find /b a seriously disturbing place but that's another conversation.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Happy

      @malenfant

      What's /b?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      rule #1

      you never talk about \b\

    3. A. Coatsworth Silver badge

      Re: Food for thought

      You don't browse /b/ by accident... in the very unlikely event you reached that place without knowing beforehand, you would be getting the hell out of there shocked, scared and probably mentally scarred 5 seconds later.

      If you go there, you know what you're looking for.

  21. Graham Bartlett
    Badgers

    Now, about those dogs and horses...

    OK, OK, the kiddy stuff could be innocent. Damn unlikely, but it's possible.

    So will all those people shouting "Orwell! Big Brother! Police brutality! State oppression! Guilt by association!" kindly tell me how he came to have pictures of people having it off with dogs and horses? Just an accident? Innocent explanation?

    And will you also tell me that you don't think you're worried about having him hanging around your area?

    Badgers, because this guy probably doesn't have those in his collection yet.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Now, about those dogs and horses...

      I take it you're vegan?

    2. Scorchio!!

      Hmm

      'Damn [sic] unlikely but it's possible'? Is this statement of probability based on some theory, backed up by repeatedly collected data, replicated throughout the community of scientists, or would this be your lay rule of thumb?

      OK, OK, you were speaking rhetorically, right?

      Your remarks on guilt by association sound very much like a non sequitur, and definitely like more rhetoric, neither of which is valid in epistemology (the basic enterprise of a court) or science.

      I'm still not sure about the 'zoophilia' debate, since it by definition implies that inter species sex between, say, horses and donkeys, lions and tigers (leading occasionally to the birth of a 'liger': http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=liger&meta=&btnG=Google+Search ), zebras and donkeys (leading occasionally to the birth of a zedonk: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=zedonk&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a ) and a variety of other examples, probably most not leading to issue, are all 'illegal'.

      Then there is the matter of sex between males of all species, including (e.g.) that between a adult male macaque and a more junior one, as observed by G V Hamilton. Should prosecution take place here? Do we still speak of 'the animals' rather than 'the other animals', just as we speak of our effects on the environment rather than our effects on other components of the environment?

      Since humans are animals, if prosecution of one species is to occur then, logically, prosecution of all species ought to occur when inter species sex takes place. So you don't like it if an individual decides to have sex with another animal, nor do I, but our personal preferences have nothing to do with the matter, just so long as no hurt is inflicted. What do you say of the dog that tries to mount its owner? 12 months for sexual harassment? Oh, I see, we know better, and paraphilias mean nothing to your erudite legal eye. OK, OK.

      The recent case of a man buggering his own bicycle makes my mind boggle, in this context. I wonder if the bike was hurt or objected. Perhaps he did not use enough axle grease.

      Furthermore a category error is also being perpetuated, inasmuch that alleged illicit photographs of children in alleged 'erotic poses' (and I have still seen no evidence to support the definition in this case) are not the same as sex between different animals, whether including humans or not. Conflating sensitive issues in this manner is not merely sloppy thinking, it is, legally speaking, very, very dangerous. It leads to hanging parties.

  22. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Boffin

    So what's the moral.

    Well.....

    Voluntarily handing over a PC to the Police *before* you've

    1) Taken a full backup (given how long they seem to keep their hands on people's PCs).

    2) Carefully checked it for*any* dubious material.

    3) Removed any dubious material (along with any audit trail on it).

    4) Blanked any whitespace on the drives

    (*especially* if you've been critical of their handling of a police investigation) is pretty dumb.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    @food for thought

    "if you don't understand why owning that is wrong, you should be given a little jacket with long sleeves, and removed from the rest of society for our own good."

    You are Kurt Vonnegut and I claim my £5.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    @malenfant

    Rules 1 & 2

    And yes, it is a worryingly weird place, but also funny in parts as well - safest way is to get a friend to browse and you look over their shoulder

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Happy

      AC@23:12

      "And yes, it is a worryingly weird place, but also funny in parts as well - safest way is to get a friend to browse and you look over their shoulder"

      It's like America?

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Distributors

    So if this guy can be charged with having indecent pictures of children, namely pictures of children exposing their underwear, then when will they be charging Google with distributing indecent pictures of children for allowing the same pictures to be seen on their site? If you go to Google images, and do an innocuous search of say the band Boys to Men in underwear, a number of pictures that come up are actually pictures of children in underwear.

    Oh right, it's easier to get a conviction with this guy.

  26. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Allan George Dyer

      Not quite right...

      OK, many cultures have, and do, allow marriage at an earlier age. Royalty have even betrothed 4-year olds for succession purposes.

      But bearing children before 16 is better?! The risk of cervical cancel from unprotected sex (normally necessary for pregnancy) is greater. The physical changes from a girl's to woman's body that are necessary for successful childbirth take time, especially with poorer nutrition (as in the past). You also pointed out that women were lucky to live into their 40s - might this have something to do with having babies before their bodies were ready (along with, of course, hygiene and medical care)?

      People mature differently, some might be able to cope with the risk and commitment of an adult relationship at 15, but those that don't need protection from adults that would prey on their naiveté.

      This is all rather far from the issue of these "holiday snaps". Too much depends on the context of when the pics were taken, and why they were on that computer.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pictures of Children

    My wife is not British, and has never lived, or spent more than a few weeks there.

    We were on holiday in UK a year or so back, and she asked me to take some photos of children having fun on the beach.

    Sorry: I didn't dare do such a thing. Not in England in this day and age.

    Sad.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    all i'm saying

    is that if you want me to know what kind of pictures i can't have, you'd better have some available for me to learn from..... that's all i'm saying.

  29. Jerry
    Boffin

    My day job is watching child pornography

    Honest! I work as an expert witness in criminal cases - mostly involving child porn.

    I have to rock up to court and sit through the display of pictures and movies.

    My last case finished this week and it had a number of charges over some pretty tame images.

    Included was the Simpsons 'modified' cartoons with added sex for Bart & Lisa- probably many of you have seen them? These were supershort videos and an animated gif. The rest of the images were the usual crap that kids take of each other when fooling with a camera phone. Again nothing noxious.

    Cases law has about a 50% conviction rate for the Simpsons material. It depends on the jury.

    If the jury had seen any actual hard-core child porn they would have laughed this material out of court.

    As it is - the guy has a very good chance of being convicted.

    1. Scorchio!!

      Exactly

      It was exactly these animated gifs that I had in mind - among other things - when I posted another reply earlier.

      We have been governed by people whose grasp of reality is, in some areas, tenuous. Nevertheless they have been legislating furiously, leading to the use of RIPA to investigate parents and legitimacy of catchment area claims, the deletion, or confiscation of digital photographs or even detention of the photographer when this is completely inappropriate, as acknowledged by Chief Constables (e.g., Met force), drivers being prosecuted for blowing their noses, and an extensive list that I have on my machine at home that frequently amazes me.

      One of Labour's favourite toys is legislation and, regrettably, much of their badly phrased, over complex and frequently unneccesary legislation has to go. On this the governing parties are in absolute agreement, and have been for a long time. Such are the consequences of Labour's illicit social engineering, and I'll be the first to admit that I voted for them in 1997. (With discomfort)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Thanks for the info..... Change needed....

      So the Cartoon Law is really live now and being used without being reported, but as a bolt on, so far. My question for the previous poster is are you an expert for the defense or prosecution, or either depending on the case?

      Though I have no comment on this case, since I was not on the jury or in attendance. The recent crusade to see pedomonsters everywhere, really strikes me as modern day McCarthyism.

      The laws covering 'child p0rn' to are too broad. No-one is going to argue that anyone abusing children in any way, not just sexually which seems to be given higher importance, needs to be punished, servilely.

      Also anyone giving financial support to the abuse of children also needs to be punished. This support could be paying to visit child abuse material hosting websites. Paying to have child abuse pictures videos created. This quoted principle was the reasoning that the government used when they made the possession of 'child p0rn' illegal. That principle made me not have to much of a problem with the law. I know it is difficult to prove whether someone paid in some way for photos, etc.

      But as I am being educated more and more about how this law is worded and used by the stories on this website. Also not helped by the other puritan p0rn legislation that has come in. Like many others here, my cynicism has increased. Also describing downloading an image as 'making child p0rn' just seems like an insult to our intelligence. I wish more members of the public would educate themselves on this, rather than just seeing the headline 'Child p0rn man jailed' and feeling happy. I think most would also start to be cynical.

      For one, do I really want someone who has erotic pictures etc of someone over 16, treated the same as someone with photo's of someone of say 10 or 11. This one is really scary as it is so easy to not realize that someone is 'underage' if they are physically very mature. Pubs get caught out every week. A lads mag published pictures of someone because they were big up front, but under 18 recently, though oddly no-one got arrested. Even the whole porn industry was fooled once, see Traci Lords on wikipedia. Really over 16's should be covered by another law to just make people think twice about making porn involving them, especially since most over 16's seem to be quite busy taking dirty pictures of themselves.

      So it would be really great if these laws could be reformed so they are more targeted, so I can get back to making comments about hating pedomosters again. Instead of having to make comments that I am sure lots of people would regards as in support of them.....

      1. Jerry
        Boffin

        What this expert witness does

        You asked "My question for the previous poster is are you an expert for the defense or prosecution, or either depending on the case?"

        Technically I work for the court, but I am paid for by the defense.

        My job includes making requests for collection/analysis of evidence by the Police; Generation of expert reports; Sitting in court with the defense barrister explaining the prosecution evidence as it is lead; Scripting the cross-examination for the defense barrister; Finally, if I can't avoid it, giving evidence myself.

        I work with the Police and many times we can resolve issues before or during the case.

        It really helps if there is a good prosecutor as most of the computer evidence goes over the jury's heads, and it is usually stultifyingly boring.

        Most cases rotate around identification of the defendant as using the computer / disk / ipod / phone/ USB stick / camera, and identification of others who have/had access. Typical defendant excuses are "It was someone else" or "It was a virus/trojan".

        I have had only one case where the defendant was not guilty but was convicted. In this case the "it was someone else" was the correct answer.

  30. SleepyJohn
    Stop

    But would you have him as a babysitter?

    It seems this man had a legal right to store on his computer nearly 500 pictures of other peoples' little girls in scantily-clad, sexualised poses, and a number of unspecified ones of humans and animals engaged in sexual activity. It also seems that an awful lot of people here believe, with some loud conviction, that he had an equal moral right to do so.

    I wonder if they would show the same self-righteous enthusiasm at the prospect of their own little girls going off camping with him, if he taught at their school? In the absolute certain knowledge that his apparent liking for partly-undressed little girls, not to mention bestiality, could not possibly pose any risk to their own daughters?

    Hands up all those who would hire him as a babysitter for the weekend, to look after a precocious ten year old daughter? Invite him to bring his computer and plug it into the widescreen 50 inch TV? Take her for a nice walk in the woods Saturday afternoon? Well, would you? Risk sacrificing your child on the altar of 'unproven connections'?

    I don't care who calls me a bigoted old buffoon: my children's right to be not put at risk overrides by a very long way this man's right to keep such pictures on his computer. And the shrill, glib assertions of those who claim that such behaviour cannot possibly bring harm to young children leave me cold.

    Think of the children!!! Yes, let's do that. And let's not allow hatred of the police to cloud our judgement over simple, commonsense ways to protect those vulnerable, utterly dependent children. "No, M'Lud, I had no inkling whatsoever that this man could be a risk to my child. His 484 indecent photos of provocatively clad little girls were only classed as Level One, and there were a mere 28 bestiality photos and videos classed as 'extreme pornography'; oh and there was an Emperor with no clothes on, but he was an adult."

    As one commenter said, the police will not find his missing son in the computer. They may, however, find in there a clue to his disappearance. And you can take that whatever way you want.

    1. Graham Marsden
      FAIL

      @bigoted old buffoon

      Your whole rant^H^H^H^H self-righteous position seems to be based on the same mentality of the previous Government's "vetting scheme" where everyone is presumed guilty until proven innocent.

      Tell me, do you require that anyone who comes and babysits for *your* children allows you full access to their computer so you can check through and ensure that they don't have any "questionable" images on it? No? So you admit that *YOU* are jeopardising *YOUR* children by failing to take adequate precautions!!!

      1. Scorchio!!

        Yup

        Thanks for putting most of the points that I would have. One addition; most abusers are either within the family or close to it. As to the dark wittering about the computer containing clues as to the missing person, either way, it's the sort of bent thinking from which juries have to be protected, in order that they do not convict the innocent. Here is a specimen of just that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lesley_Molseed

        Poor Kishko died before his mother did, and it is very likely that the stupidity of his fellow men and women killed him. Meanwhile the offender was of course running free, and I shudder to think about that.

  31. Scorchio!!
    Megaphone

    Thought control

    What we have seen over the past 13 years or so is a welter of legislation, restrictions and crazy ideas (aka political corrrectness) that have taken root in our country. Police officers charge drivers for blowing their nose, councils use anti terrorism legislation to investigate whether parents live in a catchment area or not, people are thrown into the cells or their digital photographs of public scenes destroyed by law enforcement officers on completely *bogus* grounds which ought to constitute material for investigating said officers (and we have the words of Chief Constables here), the examples are many and very disturbing.

    It would seem that a mixture of things has taken place; the pencil and millboard brigade, with their petty insistence on following legislation to its logical extreme and applying that, rather than the spirit of the law; those in the executive who are incapable of thinking for themselves and are incapable of distinguishing between an offence and something which merely has characteristics of an offence that are neither necessary nor sufficient and thus do not merit prosecution. It only needs a judiciary and jurors (made up folk like ye and me) to go along with this risible tide of sheep thinking, and the rope is pulled out, the victim placed on a stool and people fight to kick the stool away.

    On my one of my HDs are family photographs in which nieces and nephews appear. I'll reconsider these, and I'll certainly reconsider the very fine specimens that I have of female body painting.

    Have a joy-joy experience today, don't forget how to use the sea shells, or you may be prosecuted, and certainly don't think negative thoughts about the legislature and the executive, or the remaining dead hand of new labour government will do something unpleasant to you. Now that is a philia worthy of investigation and punishment of the highest order.

  32. Tim Bates
    Thumb Down

    Glad I'm not in the UK...

    I'd probably go to jail for the photo on my phone of my boss's son... He's only wearing a nappy... I have very strong doubts these days that the fact he's 1 day old and hooked up to life support machines would count for anything.

    It's all gone quite insane these days. It scares me a little. So what if this guy had some beastiality videos - that alone does not increase the "perviness factor" of the photos of the kids.

    Half the clients of the shop I work for would be in jail if the family computer was looked at by the logical conclusion police - 1000 photos of their kids combined with some cached pornos the teenage son was looking at would probably equal parents in jail for abusing the kids.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Didnt know anything was wrong"

    "Didnt know anything was wrong"!?!?! - yeah I use the 'sorry I didnt know' line too when I throw away my wifes magazines (& each time I do know).

    Surely its by-the-by - why have any pics of kids you dont know? although maybe some common sense is needed because I've got pics of my daughter & step kids on my PC so should I start worrying? - although my eldest (step)daughters 17 & if someone had pics of her in her undies being listed on the sex offenders registers the least of thier worrys as I have chain saw :-)

  34. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Oh, a vigilante father?

    "although my eldest (step)daughters 17 & if someone had pics of her in her undies being listed on the sex offenders registers the least of thier worrys as I have chain saw :-)"

    What if that would be her boyfriend to whom she did give the picture herself? You know, that boyfriend of hers might well end-up on the sex offender register because he can shag her legally (over 16) but he can't have her pictures (under 18). Will you still cut him up (perhaps your future would-be son-in-law)?

  35. Malcolm Boura 2

    Dishonesty

    There are two fundamental problems:

    Legal dishonesty - if nude pictures of children, pictures of children's underwear and such like are illegal then the law should have the honesty to say that. The dishonesty is compounded by the media, and officials of all descriptions, referring to the photographs as "child pornography". Probably the majority of photgraphs which people are prosecuted for are not pornographic. "Indecent" means whatever the beholder wants it to mean, and the various court judgments that have attempted to clarify it have been ciruclar. Along the lines of "it is indecent if it is indecent". Reforming this law so that it says clearly what is illegal is long overdue. Secrecy is always dangerous, especially as part of the legal process, and I strongly suspect that if the public were allowed to see the photographs, or at least those near the bordeline, then there would be an outcry.

    Harm to children - if the law assumes that children are inherently sexual, that children's bodies are inherently sexual and that adults inherently find children to be sexual then guess what, at least some people will come to believe it, and some will act on it. How much harm is that doing?

  36. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Unlikely that any jurors would have seen *real* child porn

    And likely therefor to be *lead* by the Prosecution and have their critical thinking faculties switched off.

    Do not question. Do not doubt. Think of the children. Convict him.

    I *suspect** that once you've seen CP (As a presume Jerry 2 has) it's pretty damm obvious that this is *grossly* illegal material. OTOH most of the people who have would probably be pedophiles anyway and unlikely to be on a jury.

    That leave that happy hunting ground of lawyers, the gray area.

    Legally illegal but people don't realize it is so.

    If (for example) a teenage girl photographs herself in (or possibly out of ) her underwear on FB or MS and has not set the privacy settings is she liable for 10 000 counts of distributing (and 1 count of manufacturing) CP? Note That I have *no* knowledge of any teenage girl actually *doing* this, merely that it doesn't seem entirely impossible.

    As for cartoon p()rn. WTF is that about?

This topic is closed for new posts.