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Archive for the ‘Downloading’ Category

‘Extreme’ extreme porn law puts Scots out of kilter: “

Proposals would criminalise material allowed in rest of UK

If you thought Scotland might be a safe place to stash your collection of dubious erotic artwork when legislation on extreme porn comes into force, think again.…

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(Via The Register - Public Sector.)

Good old Scotland introduces its own version of the possession of extreme violent pornography provisions. I noticed this thanks to ever so the brilliant www.melonfarmers.co.uk

The below information has been taken from a document that summarises the proposals that will be included in the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill (to be introduced into the Scottish Parliament in early 2009).

Revitalising Justice - Proposals To Modernise And Improve The Criminal Justice System

POSSESSION OF EXTREME PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL

The Scottish Executive issued a joint consultation in 2005 with the Home Office on issues relating to the possession of extreme pornography. This consultation ran until December 2005 and 93 Scottish responses were received.

We have decided to introduce a new offence for the possession of extreme pornographic material. We propose that this offence will criminalise the possession of pornographic images which realistically depict:

* Life-threatening acts and violence that would appear likely to cause severe injury;
* Rape and other non- consensual penetrative sexual activity, whether violent or otherwise; and
* Bestiality or necrophilia.

The maximum penalty for the proposed new offence will be 3 years imprisonment.

We intend that the new offence will be similar to that at section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which will apply in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Scottish offence will go further than that offence, however, in that it will cover all images of rape and non-consensual penetrative sexual activity, whereas the English offence only covers violent rape.

Under section 51 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, it is already illegal to publish, sell or distribute or to possess with a view to selling or distributing the material that would be covered by this new offence. We propose to increase the maximum penalty under section 51 of the 1982 Act in respect of extreme pornographic material from 3 to 5 years.

Relevant weblinks

Consultation on the possession of extreme pornographic material - August 2005

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-extreme-porn-3008051/

Analysis of Scottish responses received to the consultation

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/criminal/17543/ExtremePornograhicMateria/AnalysisReport

BENEFIT OF MAKING THE PROPOSED CHANGE

Will help ensure society is protected from exposure to pornography that depicts horrific images of violence.
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Teenager detained in terror trial: “Britain’s youngest Islamist terrorist is sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ institution”

19.09.2008

Britain’s youngest Islamist terrorist has been sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ institution.

Hammaad Munshi, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, was 16 when he was arrested in 2006. Now 18, he was convicted of making a record of information likely to be used for terrorist purposes, but cleared of possessing terrorist material. Sentencing him at the Old Bailey, Judge Timothy Pontius said Munshi “fell under the spell of fanatical extremists”.

“There is no doubt that you knew what you were doing,” the judge told him.

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Man jailed for downloading 104,523 child porn images - WalesOnline: “Man jailed for downloading 104,523 child porn images

Sep 12 2008 By Robin Turner

A WEST Wales man who built up one of the biggest and most depraved child pornography collections ever seen in British courts was jailed for four years today.

And Carmarthen Crown Court heard 26-year-old Aled Matthews, whose fiancee knew nothing about his twisted desires, boasted to paedophiles on internet chat rooms that he ‘could not wait to have kids’ so he could start abusing them.

And he also claimed on the internet he intended to ‘turn’ his fiancee who, he said, worked with children from ‘the age of zero upwards’.

Matthews, who lived with his innocent fiancee at Heol Morlais, Ammanford, downloaded 104,523 child pornography images onto his computer and stored them on memory sticks and CDs.

They showed children ‘from the age of one upwards’ being sexually abused by adults.

The images were so sickening, experienced Dyfed Powys Police computer crime investigator Sandra Kealey, who had spent years examining child pornography images as part of her job, said she was moved to tears for the first time in her career.

Sentencing Matthews yesterday, judge Michael Burr said : ‘The people who made these images descended to the pit.’

And he told Matthews : ‘You fell into the trap of accessing them on the internet and to your discredit found you had some interest in them.’

Matthews pleaded guilty to 33 sample charges relating to the 104,523 images, 16 of making (downloading) indecent images, 16 of distributing them and one of possessing them.

As well as being jailed for four years yesterday he was also placed on the sex offenders’ register ‘indefinitely’, banned from using computers or other technology capable of holding images and was also ordered to stay away from children under 16 unless they were accompanied by a responsible adult.

He was also disqualified from ever working with children.

Matthews built up what Judge Burr called the ‘vast’ child pornography collection within three months of buying a computer in Swansea.

He began swapping indecent images, which included video footage as well as still pictures, over the internet and it was this which alerted the police.

A labourer with a steady job at a West Wales building firm, Matthews had no previous convictions so it came as a huge shock to his family when he was arrested in May of last year.

His barrister Huw Davies said Matthews asked for voluntary redundancy knowing ‘the game was up’.

The 26-year-old, whose parents watched him being jailed from the public gallery yesterday, told detectives he became bored with adult pornography on the internet and began searching for child related pornography.

Many of the images in his collection contained the most serious ‘category five’ images which include children being sexually and physically abused.

Police interviewed Matthews’s fiancee but, the court heard, it was clear she knew nothing about his criminal activities.

Carina Hughes, prosecuting, said the amount of indecent images in the case was one of the biggest to come before the courts and the abuse depicted was also among the worse.

Police found files on Matthews’s computer which logged his chat room entries.

In one conversation he told another internet user he and his fiancee were ‘trying for kids next year’.

He then says ‘can’t wait’ and places a smiling face icon next to it and later says, ‘am trying to turn the girlfriend onto it, she’s not into it’.

He also said that she worked with children from the age of zero upwards and he hoped that he could ‘have some fun’.

Matthews told police that he made these statements out of ‘bravado’ and in an attempt to attract other like minded people on the internet to talk to him.

He said he had no intention of carrying out any of the suggestions he made in chat rooms.

The defendant’s barrister Huw Rees said his client accepted the harm that the production of the images did to children though he emphasised Matthews merely watched the images and was not involved in making them.

He also said Matthews made no money from distributing the images to others on the internet.”

Illegal downloading ‘here to stay’: “New study claims downloading through P2P and torrent sites is ‘entrenched’”

(Via Latest news, sport, business, comment and reviews from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk.)

Nazi paedophile: “‘Racial war’ terrorist who viewed child abuse images”

Neo-Nazi Martyn Gilleard has been found guilty of making bombs for a far-right terrorist campaign, after having previously admitted downloading thousands of images of child sexual abuse.

He wrote of starting a “racial war” and murdering Muslims.

(Via BBC News.)

Do you know how much of your porn is extreme?: “

If you’ve got the time, ask a policeman

It seems likely that the government thought that passing a new law on extreme porn would be the last word on the matter. Recent events in Birmingham suggest that this may not quite be the case.…

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(Via The Register - Public Sector.)

Law: Wicked thoughts are not a crime – yet - The Telegraph: By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor, Last Updated: 10:06PM BST 18/06/2008

The ‘lyrical terrorist’ case has highlighted the ambiguities of a law designed to prevent atrocities .

You can think what you like. That was what the Director of Public Prosecutions told a conference on Monday organised by the free speech group Index on Censorship. Sir Ken Macdonald’s remarks were backed up by Home Office minister Tony McNulty.

‘We do not seek to outlaw thought,’ Mr McNulty said. ‘We do seek to outlaw actions, in some cases.’

The Government’s aim was to find a balance between ‘the sanctity of an individual’s free speech and the security of the wider society’.

The summary of the decision of the Court of Appeal in R v. Samina Malik (aka the Lyrical terrorist) is provided below. The Court of Appeal has her conviction overturned.

R v Malik [2008] All ER (D) 201 (Jun)
Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers CJ, Goldring and Plender JJ
17 June 2008

The defendant was arrested by police officers at her home address where she lived with her parents and siblings. The premises were searched and a number of items seized. They included a computer as well as a number of publications which appeared to support violent jihad, a number of poems written by the defendant using her pen-name ‘the lyrical terrorist’ and a number of documents containing writings on subjects such as weapons and interrogations. Subsequently, the hard drive of the computer was analysed and found to contain the material later relied upon by the prosecution at her trial for terrorism offences.

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CPS Press Release : CPS response to Samina Malik appeal: “CPS response to Samina Malik appeal
17 June 2008

The Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to seek a retrial in the case of Samina Malik after the Court of Appeal quashed her conviction for collecting information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

Sue Hemming, Head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Counter Terrorism Division, said: ‘Since Ms Malik’s conviction, the law has been clarified by the Court of Appeal. The result is that some of the 21 documents we relied on in Ms Malik’s trial would no longer be held capable of giving practical assistance to terrorists.

‘However other documents in her possession, including ‘the al-Qaida Manual’, ‘the Terrorist’s Handbook’, ‘the Mujahideen Poisons Handbook’ and several military manuals, clearly retain that potential.. We therefore have no doubt that it was right to bring this prosecution.

‘Nevertheless, taking into account the time Ms Malik spent on remand before her first trial, and the likely non-custodial sentence she would receive upon conviction in a retrial, we have decided not to seek a retrial on those manuals.

‘Ms Malik was not prosecuted for her poetry. She was prosecuted for possessing documents that could provide practical assistance to terrorists. Furthermore she was prosecuted after, working airside at Heathrow, she had supplied information about airport security procedures to Sohail Qureshi.

‘That very day he was arrested trying to board a flight to Pakistan carrying equipment he admitted he was taking to terrorists in Pakistan. He later admitted he was going there to fight himself and he pleaded guilty to a terrorist offence.’
Notes to Editors

1. A Court of Appeal decision in February 2008 in the case of R v K clarified the meaning of Sec 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The court ruled that an offence would be committed only if the document or record concerned was of a kind that was likely to provide practical assistance to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. A document that simply encouraged the commission of acts of terrorism was not sufficient.
2. In November 2007, Ms Malik was found not guilty at the Old Bailey of an offence under Sec 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (possession of an article for terrorist purposes) but guilty of an offence under Sec 58. Sec 58 says: A person commits an offence if - (a) he collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or (b) he possesses a document or record containing information of that kind. The maximum sentence at Crown Court is 10 years.”