Paper Topic:

Darryn Walker is being prosecuted under the obscene Publications Act 1959 for posting a comment on a fantasy erotic website which allegedly described the kidnap, multilation, rape and murder of girls aloud memebers Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding

Obscene Publications

Described as the culmination of a long struggle between the Home Office ' and reformers , the Obscene Publications Act 1959 is a compromise between those two factions . The 1959 Act aims to purports to protect the integrity of literature , and to strengthen the law concerning pornography ' Darryn Walker 's prosecution in respect of publications on the internet which described the kidnap , mutilation rape and murder of Girls Aloud members Cheryl Cole , Nadine Coyle , Sarah Harding will be examined by reference to the stated aims of the Obscene Publications Act 1959

p A prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 falls under Section 1 which provides the following definition of obscene

an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items ) the effect of any one of its items is , if taken as a whole , such as to tend to 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

In practice the Obscene Publication is used for the prosecution of those who publish material that is

.almost exclusively against explicit pictorial material dealing with what is generally regarded as deviant behaviour : in other words sado-masochism , bestiality , paedophilia , bondage

It therefore follows that unless Walker 's comments were accompanied by pictorial representations , the chances are that the prosecutor will not succeed in proving that the published material were likely to deprave and corrupt persons...

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