The · Bravest · Man · I · Ever · Knew

You might think that this is a bit of abstruse law-student rambling, but in the light of some of the art readily available on, say, DeviantArt, let alone the works that got a few people ToSsed from pornish_pixies a while back, Section 62 of this Act bears studying by anyone who downloads art onto a hard drive.

Coroners and Justice Act 2009

Section 62 Possession of prohibited images of children

(1) It is an offence for a person to be in possession of a prohibited image of a child.

(2) A prohibited image is an image which—

(a) is pornographic,

(b) falls within subsection (6), and

(c) is grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character.

(3) An image is “pornographic” if it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.

…

(6) An image falls within this subsection if it—

...

(b) portrays any of the acts mentioned in subsection (7).

(7) Those acts are—

(a) the performance by a person of an act of intercourse or oral sex with or in the presence of a child;

(b) an act of masturbation by, of, involving or in the presence of a child;

(c) an act which involves penetration of the vagina or anus of a child with a part of a person’s body or with anything else;

(d) an act of penetration, in the presence of a child, of the vagina or anus of a person with a part of a person’s body or with anything else;

(e) the performance by a child of an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal (whether dead or alive or imaginary);

(f) the performance by a person of an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal (whether dead or alive or imaginary) in the presence of a child.

…

65 Meaning of “image” and “child”

(1) The following apply for the purposes of sections 62 to 64.

(2) “Image” includes—

(a) a moving or still image (produced by any means), or

(b) data (stored by any means) which is capable of conversion into an image within paragraph (a).

(3) “Image” does not include an indecent photograph, or indecent pseudophotograph, of a child (because they were already illegal under an earlier act - p).

…

(5) “Child”, subject to subsection (6), means a person under the age of 18 (i.e. not just someone under the British age of consent of sixteen - p)

(6) Where an image shows a person the image is to be treated as an image of a child

if—

(a) the impression conveyed by the image is that the person shown is a child, or

(b) the predominant impression conveyed is that the person shown is a child despite the fact that some of the physical characteristics shown are not those of a child.

(7) References to an image of a person include references to an image of an imaginary person.

(8) References to an image of a child include references to an image of an imaginary child.

66 Penalties

…

(2) The offender is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or both;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or a fine, or both.

I have cut out some subsections on film material, context of the images, legal holders of such material and Northern Ireland.

For people in a lot of countries, 314mm (12.3 inches) of rain in twenty-four hours doesn’t sound very surprising. But, reputation to the contrary, England rarely has very heavy rain (the previous daily record was 279mm in Dorset in 1955) and the downpour in Cumbria yesterday was devastating in its effects. A policeman, Bill Barker, was killed when the bridge he was shepherding people away from collapsed, in Workington. His body was washed into the Solway Firth by the River Derwent and recovered from the beach ten miles further north, at Allonby, during the afternoon. Three other bridges collapsed. Fire officers were wading chest-deep through the streets of Cockermouth to rescue people who had found themselves trapped in minutes, and helicopters were rescuing families who had had to break through their own roofs to get out. Schools are closed and Bassenthwaite Lake, which lies high in the fells above the towns, has overflowed and closed one of my favourite roads, the A66. There are some good pictures on the BBC Cumbria website.

Ireland is similarly affected, as is most of the rest of the north-west of England and south-west Scotland. All we had in the south-east was an ordinary wet November day.

Being reminded of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by ellid , I am going to indulge in an anecdote. 

When I was a teenager, I met a family friend of my then boyfriend, whose father worked for a German company.  Horst had been born in Berlin, and when it was divided, he and his widowed mother found themselves on the outside, in East Germany.  Horst’s mother was desperate to join her family in West Germany and she evolved a hair-raising plan.

The Berlin underground system continued to run through both zones, and at the beginning trains stopped at stations on both sides, but those getting off in West Berlin were required to show their papers to the guards stationed in each carriage.  The guards were deployed in threes, on the principle that one would defect, two would conspire to defect, but if there were three, one would shop the other two. Horst's mother coached seven-year-old Horst in what he had to do: he was to leave the train behind a friendly-looking woman who was travelling with several children, and once they were out of the station, he was to get her attention and give her a letter from his mother.  Then Horst’s mother would try to get through on her own as soon as possible. 

This they carried out.  Horst and his mother spent several days travelling on the trains in the early afternoon, when primary school children got out of school and were likely to be collected by their mothers.  When Horst’s mother eventually spotted a likely family who were getting off in West Berlin, she prodded poor terrified little Horst towards them, and he followed her instructions.  He was lucky – the family were kind and conscientious, and took him in, reassured him and left posters with his mother’s name and their phone number outside the station. Two and a half weeks later, Horst’s mother telephoned and the whole family rushed to meet her and take her to their apartment. They helped Horst and his mother get on their way to her family in Bavaria, and the families remained friends for life.

Those must have been the longest two and a half weeks of Horst’s life.

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