UK PIM Law Research

[BLueRibbon]

PIM = Prohibited Images of Minors. This is a term used by Mu to describe criminalized media depicting people under the age of 18.

I'm doing research into UK PIM law for an article about Huw Edwards.

One of the biggest surprises has been just how easy it is for anyone to be convicted of a sex offense simply because someone sent them PIM.

According the Crown Prosecution Service, citing R v Okoro (2018), as a defining precedent:

* The prosecution must prove that the images are within the accused’s custody or control such that they were capable of accessing them
* They must know that they possess the images
* The accused need not know that the photographs were indecent.

The presiding judge referred to statutory defenses:

(2) Where a person is charged with an offence under subsection (1) above, it shall be a defence for him to prove—

(a) that he had a legitimate reason for having the photograph or pseudo-photograph in his possession; or

(b) that he had not himself seen the photograph or pseudo-photograph and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, it to be indecent; or

(c) that the photograph or pseudo-photograph was sent to him without any prior request made by him or on his behalf and that he did not keep it for an unreasonable time.

The presiding judge pointed out that:

The Act places the burden of proving this defence upon the defendant. That means he does not have to make you sure of it (which is the criminal law standard of proof), but he does have to satisfy you to the lesser (civil law standard of proof) on the balance of probabilities, namely that it is "more likely than not".

What this boils down to should strike fear into every person subject to the UK's laws on indecent images of children. If somebody sends you a large number of files for whatever reason, and one of those files is indecent, but you didn't check them carefully for anything questionable and quickly delete, the burden of proof is you to show that you were unaware of the unlawful content. The defendant is expected to prove a negative.

But surely it can't really be that bad? Would the legal system of a 'developed' country really be that unreasonable? Is "more likely than not" such a difficult standard to meet?

The Crown Prosecution Service, who are responsible for prosecuting those accused of PIM offenses, certainly believe so. When prosecuting cases, they will demand that a defendant reach the threshold of evidence required for a reversed burden of proof defense. However, when they were ordered by a judge to make copies of 'indecent images of children' for the purposes of a legal defense, they appealed the judge's decision on the grounds that they could theoretically be prosecuted and subject to a reverse burden of proof! They even threatened not to prosecute if required to undertake any actions that would subject them to this standard! They are happy to demand prison for people wrongly accused and unable to meet the threshold, but they are so terrified of being asked to meet it themselves that they will refuse to do their jobs in such circumstances.

The research continues....

[Fragment]

It's amazing just how much legal standards are put on hold in the service of anti-sex ideology. These laws, in theory, should be easy to challenge. Yet somehow even basic civil rights are put on hold in the name of "child protection". It's sickening.

[BLueRibbon]

R v Harrison [2008] 1 Cr. App. R. 29

If anybody could locate a copy of this judgment, I would be grateful.

[BLueRibbon]

It's amazing just how much legal standards are put on hold in the service of anti-sex ideology. These laws, in theory, should be easy to challenge. Yet somehow even basic civil rights are put on hold in the name of "child protection". It's sickening.

The judgments are amusing. The judges acknowledge basic facts accurately, and then twist their interpretation to fit the western narrative on MAPs and youth sexuality.

In R v Murray (2004), the judge decided that an excerpt of a video that was made and distributed lawfully, for medical purposes, could be ruled indecent because that excerpt was slowed down at the point where a child's genitals were being analyzed and because the medical commentary was removed. The original judge and the appeal judge both acknowledged the firmly established precedent of R v Graham-Kerr (1988), which ruled that the motivations of the defendant (sexual or non-sexual) were irrelevant, but insisted that an excerpt of a lawful video can still be judged separately from the original video, and the images can be treated as different images. This is not how videos work; they are comprised of multiple frames, and these frames remain the same even if they are played back at a different speed! Some jurisdictions even treat each frame in a video as a separate image or even a separate count! And surely this interpretation contradicts the claim of every representation of PIM requiring harm to have been done?

[Fragment]

The judgments are amusing.

In a perverse way. I'm sure the people experiencing the "justice" system don't find it amusing at all. People's lives are literally at stake here and the judges are playing legal silly buggers.

That example is just more proof that they don't care about harm caused- they care about us having prohibited feelings.

[BLueRibbon]

R v Bowden (1999) determined that 'making' has the incredibly broad definition used today.

One of the key arguments from the prosecution was:

A person who either downloads images on to disc or who prints them off is making them. The Act is not only concerned with the original creation of images, but also their proliferation. Photographs or pseudo-photographs found on the Internet may have originated from outside the United Kingdom; to download or print within the jurisdiction is to create new material which hitherto may not have existed therein.

This might have been relevant in 1999, when the internet was in its infancy and people were reportedly sharing PIM peer-to-peer or on a small scale only. It has less relevance in 2024, a time when PIM are reportedly distributed en masse via massive darknet forums, way beyond the control of the UK authorities to 'keep out', and mostly already in the UK on its enormous PIM database.

An offense of distribution already exists to deal with people distributing such material, but that was the case in 1999, so it's a lesser argument in terms of suggesting a revisit of this judgment.

Fragment, could you take a look at the judgment and see if you can formulate any useful counterarguments?

[Fragment]

Given that he's already found guilty of possession under the 1988 Act I really wonder why it's necessary to add to his sentence for "making". It kind of feels like sentencing someone convicted of murder to an additional charge of "attempted murder" because under the plain language definition of "attempt" in order to kill someone you have to first have attempted to kill them. The process of downloading leads to data on disk that is requisite for a possession charge, it seems strange to add a charge of "making" to that.

References to an indecent photograph include an indecent film, a copy of an indecent photograph or film, and an indecent photograph comprised in a film.

This is the key part. If making a copy counts as making, then technically the judgement is correct. I prefer the argument of the defence lawyer, though.

The mischief at which Section 1(1) (a) has always been aimed is the active creation of indecent child pornography.

The judge in response said

In this context this is "to cause to exist; to produce by action, to bring about" (OED). As a matter of construction such a meaning applies not only to original photographs but, by virtue of Section 7, also to negatives, copies of photographs and data stored on computer disc.

I think the judge's own OED quote is telling. The defendant didn't cause anything new to exist in any real sense of the term. Sure he caused new data to exist, but that data did not contain a new image. The images themselves were already extant. The prosecution themselves said:

It is not part of the Crown's case that the defendant created for the first time any image that did not already exist in a visually identical form.

I think relevant to this case would be how other kinds of copying had been prosecuted in the past, using what kind of language. In particular copyright law and, for example, recording something off the TV onto VHS tape. But the fact that the judge relies on the OED instead of case law regarding the word "make" implies to me that there was no precedent of interpreting the word "make" as broad as to include copies.


The judge doesn't seem like a total anti, though. Despite the fact that the defendant was a teacher, the sentence was reduced to Conditional Discharge (ie no prison time / probation) because he was a first time offender. I can't imagine that happening in the UK in 2024.

[PorcelainLark]

There was this expression I've heard before that I think is relevant: "no politician loses because of being too harsh on sex offenders". From briefly looking into it the problem is that the UK lacks a codified constitution. Instead it has "Parliamentary Sovereignty", which means you can't stop a bill from being passed on the basis that it's unconstitutional. The closest you can come to it is having a "declaration of incompatibility" with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) due to the Human Rights Act 1998.
A relevant example of a "declaration of incompatibility" is found in R (F and Thompson) v Secretary of State for Justice.

Sex offenders' indefinite placement on a register and obligations thereby to report movements etc to police are disproportionate and in breach of ECHR art 8.

Otherwise, the only option is for the general public in the UK to want their politicians to go easier on sex offenders.

If you can find a way that anti-MAP laws go against the European Convention on Human Rights, you could begin to challenge them in the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamen ... ed_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Act_1998
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_ ... man_Rights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarati ... patibility
https://privacylibrary.ccgnlud.org/case ... department

[BLueRibbon]

There was this expression I've heard before that I think is relevant: "no politician loses because of being too harsh on sex offenders". From briefly looking into it the problem is that the UK lacks a codified constitution. Instead it has "Parliamentary Sovereignty", which means you can't stop a bill from being passed on the basis that it's unconstitutional. The closest you can come to it is having a "declaration of incompatibility" with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) due to the Human Rights Act 1998.
A relevant example of a "declaration of incompatibility" is found in R (F and Thompson) v Secretary of State for Justice.

Sex offenders' indefinite placement on a register and obligations thereby to report movements etc to police are disproportionate and in breach of ECHR art 8.

Otherwise, the only option is for the general public in the UK to want their politicians to go easier on sex offenders.

If you can find a way that anti-MAP laws go against the European Convention on Human Rights, you could begin to challenge them in the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamen ... ed_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Act_1998
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_ ... man_Rights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarati ... patibility
https://privacylibrary.ccgnlud.org/case ... department

It was tried in cases in the late 90s, but the judges decided that PIM laws are necessary to protect public morals (an exception to the right to freedom of expression) and therefore compatible.

The purpose of this research is not to try to change UK laws on indecent images of children; it is for an article on Huw Edwards. Those advocating change to UK PIM laws should focus more on the cost and difficulty of enforcement. There are so many people allegedly accessing PIM in the UK, and there is a lack of space in prisons. Why go to such extreme effort to track down a fraction of a percent, to eventually give them a suspended sentence, fucking up the lives of the MAP and their families? It's a waste of resources.

[PorcelainLark]

The purpose of this research is not to try to change UK laws on indecent images of children; it is for an article on Huw Edwards.

Ah, sorry for being off topic.

R v Harrison [2008] 1 Cr. App. R. 29

If anybody could locate a copy of this judgment, I would be grateful.

Is this what you're looking for?
https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk ... /2007/2976