Obscenity: Put Your Hands Together...

"I welcome the news that a jury have returned not guity verdicts in a landmark obscenity trial before Southwark crown court on Friday. However, despite the jury's unanimous decision, the legislation under which the trial was brought is still effective law.

"The defendant, Michael Peacock, was charged with distributing DVDs featuring male fisting, urination (watersports), and BDSM. Peacock ran a gay escort site called Sleazy Michael and advertised pornographic  DVDs for sale on the website Craigslist. He was charged under the Obscene Publication Act 1959 (OPA) with six counts of publishing obscene articles likely to "deprave and corrupt".

"While some of the sexual acts depicted in the DVDs are legal to perform, such as fisting and urination, the representation of them is potentially criminalised under the OPA. The Act features the contentious and ambiguous deprave and corrupt test, whereby an article (for example a DVD) is obscene if it tends to and corrupt the reader, viewer or listener.

"As the recorder, James Dingemans QC, emphasised in his summing up, it was a matter for the jury to decide whether the acts depicted were obscene if they "deprave and corrupt" the viewer. He also emphasised that: "in a civilised society lines must be drawn".

"However, the OPA has become an anachronism in the internet age. While previous cases speak in terms of pornography being covertly accessed by men in "rugby clubs" and at stag parties; now it is readily available to people of all genders, orientations and social classes. Hence this jury's verdict - in the first contested obscenity trial in the digital age - which seems to suggest "normal" members of the public accept that consensual adult pornography is an unremarkable fact."

Myles Jackman via Obscenity Lawyer.