A 39-year-old man charged after allegedly making lewd comments about children during a private online conversation has appeared in court.Now, he is also charged with 'possessing indecent images of children and two counts of taking indecent photographs of children'. Actual crimes.
But this isn't stated anywhere as not being a result of the initial investigation into his online words...
Gavin Smith, of Boleyn Way, Swanscombe, has been charged with eight counts of publishing an obscene article under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, in relation to the one-on-one online chat.I bet the authorities are studying this test case very, very carefully.
Because...
This is the first time the Act has been used to prosecute someone over an alleged private online conversation.It won't be the last, if it succeeds. Not sure if that's an entirely good thing, for all the 'For the chiiiilllldreeen!' mob will regard it as such.
11 comments:
Interesting.
Did his interlocutor dob him in, or are the "authorities" now monitoring all online chat sessions?
Maybe he should try Skype; so far the encryption they use can't be broken by the Stasi. As far as we know.
Weekend Yachtsman,
That's just a lie they tell you, so they can snoop on you.
I often think of the other fellow in the cell with Winston Smith, his name escapes me. He was not like Winston at all, in that he did actually love Big Brother and did all he could to serve him. It was his own son that betrayed him to the authorities, and the man was very proud of his son for this action, and filled with guilt for his own crimes, although he didn't know what they were, but he was sure that they must be terrible for Big Brother to be going to all this trouble to 're-habilitate' him.
These kind are the ones which represent the most danger to life and liberty. The ones so devoted to the Gov's rules and regs, to prosecuting criminals (falsely so called in most cases, whilst real crime gets rewarded), to interfering in everything and anything, especially if it harms someone else.
For an Obscene Publications Offence it has to be proved that the 'comments' would deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
If it was a one to one conversation, the chances are that the receiver already is depraved and corrupted.
Bit different if the comments are on a blog.
Pass the popcorn, please. This could get very interesting as so much depends on the context. August 4 at Medway magistrates isn't likely to settle it; even if it gets in front of a jury at Crown court the legal arguments are considerable and I'd expect an appeal even if a jury finally convicted.
They have to prove firstly that it was a publication - which means defining publication in this context - and then that it was obscene.
There's more going on here than first appears, and my first bet is back door censorship; an attempt to criminalize any correspondence that the police happen not to like.
Earlier story with a few more details
> Now, he is also charged with 'possessing indecent images of children and two counts of taking indecent photographs of children'. Actual crimes. But this isn't stated anywhere as not being a result of the initial investigation into his online words...
So what's the problem? Profiling? I'm all for it.
"Did his interlocutor dob him in, or are the "authorities" now monitoring all online chat sessions?"
If so, they must be getting very, very bored!
It has to be done with keywords, surely?
"These kind are the ones which represent the most danger to life and liberty. "
Agreed!
"For an Obscene Publications Offence it has to be proved that the 'comments' would deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
If it was a one to one conversation, the chances are that the receiver already is depraved and corrupted."
It's a very curious thing to charge him with. As WoaR says, this one is one to study carefully.
"Pass the popcorn, please. "
Seconded!
"Earlier story with a few more details"
Cheers! So 'Legal experts commenting online say Kent police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are “radical” to consider a private online chat to be a published article', eh?
I wonder why it's Kent Police trying this, and not any other force? Surely others have done what these men did, elsewhere in the country?
"So what's the problem? Profiling? I'm all for it."
The problem is that the law shouldn't be used for fishing expeditions. The Yanks have a legal concept 'fruits of the poison tree' - if a search is illegal, then anything they find in that search is ruled inadmissable.
It's meant, I presume, to keep the police on their toes and ensure they act totally legally at all times and don't simply disregard the law in their zeal to get an arrest.
I dunno, I always thougfht that wasd a good thing...
Yeah, I understand that just fine, thanks. But the police, both here and in the US, are allowed to get a warrant and search your house because they have reasonable grounds to suspect you of a crime, not because you have committed a crime. I agree that the writing itself shouldn't be illegal (unless it was incitement -- I've not seen it). But the writing, even if legal, can still be grounds for suspicion.
In other news, I'm happy for the police to concentrate their searches for bomb-making equipment and illegal firearms in the homes of people who talk in private conversations about their wholehearted approval of the ongoing efforts to kill Jews, Christians, Americans, and Britons. Profiling: good.
"I agree that the writing itself shouldn't be illegal (unless it was incitement -- I've not seen it). But the writing, even if legal, can still be grounds for suspicion. "
The Kent Police seem to be quite blase about considering it a test case, so I guess we'll see.
"In other news, I'm happy for the police to concentrate their searches for bomb-making equipment and illegal firearms in the homes of people who talk in private conversations about their wholehearted approval of the ongoing efforts to kill Jews, Christians, Americans, and Britons. "
Terrorism and the threat of mass deaths is one thing. Sorry, but no matter how horrible child abuse may be, it doesn't come close in terms of the immediacy of the threat that we should simply throw all our civil liberties out of the window.
And the authorities should bear in mind the cases they've lost and the money they've spent on similar fishing expeditions in terrorism cases...
> The Kent Police seem to be quite blase about considering it a test case
Yes, but what you're talking about there is the criminalisation of speech. Like I said, I'm with you there.
Where we're disagreeing is over the issue of suspicion. We have never had the civil liberty not to be suspected of crimes by the police — such a liberty would be bizarre. We have the civil liberty not to be convicted without proof. Quite a different thing. Your mention of the "fruit of the poison tree" is confused here. The police may not use evidence obtained from an illegal search, no, but you're implying that an illegal search is a search of someone who has committed no crime. It isn't; it's a search without a warrant or where the warrant is ruled to have been based on false information. But by definition, since warrants are part of the police investigation and therefore happen before prosecution, and since there is presumption of innocence, any warrant issued is issued against a legally innocent person guilty of no crime. That does not make the search invalid.
Obviously the police have to suspect some people more than others, or they're just going to resort to picking people in a lottery and then finding out what they're guilty of. This has nothing to do with the relative dangers of terrorism and child abuse and shoplifting and copyright-infringement and other crimes. For any crime, no matter how serious or piddling, the police suspect some people more than others and will concentrate their efforts on them.
Which is why I disagreed with this bit of yours:
> Actual crimes. But this isn't stated anywhere as not being a result of the initial investigation into his online words
My point is that, even though the online words shouldn't be illegal in themselves, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be grounds for an investigation. Of course they should. If the police aren't going to investigate men who make lewd sexual comments about children for paedophilia, who do you suggest they should investigate?
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