ENGLAND — After Liz Longhurst’s daughter Jane was killed by a 36-year-old man who claimed that his violence was fueled by a love of violent online pornography, the bereft woman vowed to fight for a ban on the scapegoated content, in the hopes of preventing similar tragedies. Thanks to a sympathetic British government, Longhur’s dreams are about to be realized.After a 30-month campaign against possession of violent online content that had the support of 50,000 petition signers, multiple political parties, and several MPs, the 74-year-old woman has proclaimed the efforts of herself and her daughter Sue to have been a success. “… we have persuaded the government to take action against these horrific internet sites, which can have such a corrupting influence and glorify extreme sexual violence.”
It is already illegal to create or publish violent sexual images in England, but the new laws will also ban the possession of any “material featuring violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in serious or disabling injury.” Violators could be punished with as many as three years in jail. Those who stumble across the content accidentally will supposedly be protected against prosecution, as will the mainstream entertainment industry.
Anti-censorship groups and those representing lifestyle BDSM enthusiasts consider claims that Graham Coutts, who faced a possible life sentence and is appealing his minimum 26-year incarceration, was unable to resist his urge to kill 31-year-old Brighten schoolteacher Jane Longhurst in 2003 because the desire was inspired and inflamed by frequent viewing of strangulation-focused fetish porn sites, to be a cop-out. Longhurst’s body had been stored for weeks after she was strangled with a pair of tights.
Although the new laws are being widely supported, there is some question as to whether they can actually be enforced. Derek Cohen, secretary for The Spanner Trust, which defends the rights of adults who engage in mutually consensual BDSM activities, believes that the legislation is a “knee-jerk reaction” to an emotionally charged murder that has nothing to do with the fetish materials to which Coutts was drawn.
“Violence is not consensual, but injuries can be received in all forms of activities,” Cohen pointed out, “People will not know whether their pictures are illegal or not. It’s a very difficult area. I think the burden of proof has to be very high. If this goes through, I hope it receives a lot more scrutiny.”
Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, disagrees. According to Gamble, “It builds on the fundamentals of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and helps take our fight against violent and extreme pornography to where it needs to be — in tune with technology and in line with how the modern criminal mind works.”
Sandra Gidley, Liberal Democrat MP and supporter of the Longhurst’s campaign insists that “It’s absolutely the right decision. The scandal is it’s taken so long to come to this decision.” Further, in Gidley’s opinion, “You cannot look at this sort of material and not be affected.”
The mourning mother insists that the passage of this legislation will mean that her daughter’s death was not “entirely in vain.”
