Jenny
Willott: I do not agree. The hon. Gentleman refers to the
harm being small, but the question is whether there is any evidence of
that. Having photographs is a completely different matter because there
clearly is a victim. It should therefore be illegal. If there is no
evidence that non-photographic images lead to further harm, why should
we make them illegal? The question is whether harm is caused as a
result of owning such images; if they have an effect on people’s
behaviour, we
should make it illegal. However, the evidence is not strong enough to
justify that. I should be grateful if the Minister were to clarify the
matter. I
am a little concerned that we are legislating without any evidence,
because the risk to children could increase. If the evidence showed
that having images that were not photographic acted as a release, and
therefore reduced the risk of harm to children, legislating could
increase the risk of harm. That is why I am concerned that we are
legislating without sufficient evidence.
Mr.
George Howarth: If the image in question is grossly
offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character but does not
have a child as a victim, is it not arguable that, by extension, all
children are victims of that
image?
Jenny
Willott: That argument stands up only if one believes that
all pornography should be illegal because it is degrading to women. I
do not believe that all pornography should be illegal. The fact is that
I do not want to see these images—they probably are truly
disgusting and repugnant. However, the question is whether they do
harm. The fact that the image is something that I do not want to see
does not mean that I believe it should be made illegal. For me, that is
where the balance lies.
Mr.
George Howarth: I shall make this my last intervention;
the hon. Lady has been generous in giving way. The difference between
pornography that degrades women and pornography that involves children
in some way is that we take the view, in law and in principle, that
children cannot defend themselves. Society therefore has the wider
obligation of defending them in every conceivable way. There is a
difference.
Jenny
Willott: Absolutely. That is why photographic pornography
should be completely illegal. The question is whether it does harm to a
real child. I have not heard evidence that is strong enough to suggest
that it does that.
Mrs.
Moon: Having spent a considerable amount of my
professional life working with abused children, particularly those that
have been sexually abused, common experience is that sexual abuse does
not start with the abuse itself. Gratification starts at a low level
and gradually builds. It is rare that the first action of a perpetrator
of sexual abuse is to assault a child. It is because they no longer get
gratification at lower levels of intensity that the need escalates. For
me, this legislation is saying that we are placing the barrier of what
is permissive and what society views as acceptable at the lowest
possible level, so that an individual is aware right from the start
that their actions are unacceptable in society and in law. In that way,
we are also seeking to protect
children.
Jenny
Willott: I am prepared to accept the point that the hon.
Lady is making, which is that the matter does not start with sexual
abuse and that it escalates. I absolutely accept that that is the case.
However, that is not the same as saying that the behaviour of every
single person who looks at an offensive and pornographic image
escalates. That goes back to the point that I made a minute ago, which
is whether or not having access to
images such as that acts as a release to people and
therefore makes them less of a risk to children. That issue is at the
heart of the decisions that we need to make on the
clause. I
should be grateful if the Minister would clarify a couple of points in
her response. First, the Protection of Children Act 1978 makes it an
offence both to publish and possess indecent images. Will she clarify
why it has been decided in this legislation just to make it an offence
to possess, rather than to publish? Why possess, rather than do
both? Also,
there appears to be a lack of clarity—this was raised
earlier—about the issue of looking at images online. That was
something that I mentioned in a couple of the evidence sessions. There
are two different processes. There is the issue of someone downloading
images so that they have them on their computer and the fact that under
this legislation, someone would be in possession of them and therefore
it would be an offence. However, if someone watches a streamed image,
it is held somewhere else so they never download it on to their
computer. The evidence given to us by the DPP was that he thought that
probably would be illegal, but I am unclear about how the legislation
as currently drafted would make it illegal, because someone does not
download the image. They do not possess the image; they watch it
somewhere else on a remote system. I shall be grateful for
clarification on
that. Overall,
personally and as a party, we have real concerns about the breadth of
the proposals in the Bill. A number of amendments in the next string
relate to those specific points, but I shall be grateful if the
Minister will clarify some of those
issues.
Maria
Eagle: The Government take very seriously all matters
relating to the sexual abuse of children. Any material that might
appear to derive from or encourage such activity is something that all
Members of this House should disapprove. All hon. Members know that the
UK has an absolute prohibition on the production, distribution and
possession of indecent photographs of children. We have recently
extended the law to cover tracings and derivatives of such photographs.
However, the possession of images that have no connection with
photographs is not covered by the current criminal law, which is the
gap that we are seeking to close with this
provision. The
police have reported finding increasing numbers of such images
alongside indecent photographs of children. More of those images are
also being found on the internet and are often blatantly advertised as
legal child pornography. I remind hon. Members that child pornography
is illegal in this country and if there are loopholes, we need to close
them. Police and child welfare groups have expressed concerns that such
images could be used for the purposes to which my hon. Friend the
Member for Bridgend referred, and lead to escalation and real
harm.
Just because
we cannot prove real harm to specific children at this minute, we
should not allow such loopholes—effectively, created by
developments in technology—to continue to make a mockery of the
law that is intended to protect our children. These images are at the
highest, most explicit and disgusting, unpleasant
end of any spectrum that might be considered to be the end result of a
doodle. They are highly detailed, explicit drawings, cartoons and
computer-generated images that look real and depict horrific scenes of
child sexual abuse, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley,
North and Sefton, East made clear in his remarks. This is not about
generally cracking down on artistic doodles or on art, but about
cracking down on a loophole that the police and others who deal with
child protection are increasingly drawing to the attention of policy
makers and Government. We should be taking that
seriously. 8.15
pm I
will not rehearse the way in which the offence works, because my right
hon. Friend did that well in his remarks. This is just to say that we
are talking about the highest, most explicit, unpleasant end of things
and about images that are already illegal in respect of publication
under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. That answers the point made
about why this provision only deals with possession: it does so because
publication is already illegal under the 1959 Act. However, possession
of these images at present is not illegal because of the way that they
are created. We need the possession offence because we are talking
about the internet. Specifying publication in the past would have dealt
with this. Possession offences are a way of trying to control these
images when the internet is the main means of distribution; otherwise
we shall not have any control over
them. Let
me move on to the amendments, about which I should like to make two
major points. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough wants to turn
the possession offence into a publication offence, for reasons that he
has outlined. He mentioned a narrow range of dirty old men, if I may
put it that way, who would be keeping the image that they create
themselves very much for themselves. It would be hard to catch a person
who produced an image or drawing in that way and for that to come to
anybody’s attention, if that is what they did in their little
back room. It would be difficult to know how that would come to the
attention of the authorities. Certainly, if it did come to the
authorities’ attention I would expect them to be concerned about
it, because we are talking about images that are produced for the
purposes of sexual arousal, primarily in those categories that it is
already illegal to publish under the 1959 Act. But in recognition of
the sensitivity of this matter, we require the consent of the DPP to
bring prosecutions. We tried to construct the offence carefully to
ensure that it captures the material that has raised the most
concern. If
we remove “disgusting” from the second element of the
offence—I remind the Committee that the DPP thought that
although “disgusting” was not used often in legislation,
he did not find it too great a concern—as the hon. and learned
Gentleman suggests we do, that would reduce the clarity of the offence
and detract from the formula accepted by Parliament last year for the
offence of possession of extreme pornography, which has similarities to
the offence we are talking about. I think that I have dealt with the
point about turning the possession offence into a publication
offence. Turning
to the new clause, we see no need for an additional defence. As the
hon. and learned Gentleman said, that element is imported from the
Defamation Act 1996 and has no precedent within the criminal
law.
It is a civil provision. Amending our new possession
offence to a publication offence would not achieve anything. Altering
the burden of proof in respect of the defences to our offence, which
mirror well understood and long-established defences, is unnecessary
and will place additional difficult burdens on those prosecuting the
possession of these horrific
images. We
ought to remind ourselves that these are the worst kind of images at
the top end of unacceptability in our society and at the most dangerous
end of potential to harm our children. We are determined to ensure that
we protect our children and not to allow loopholes like this to make a
mockery of the law. On that basis, I hope that the hon. and learned
Gentleman will ask leave to withdraw his
amendment.
Mr.
Garnier: I will do so and I will not move my new clause
formally. But we need to be careful. The context within which are
debating this matter is the context of some disgusting images. It
becomes difficult in the court of public opinion—to use a phrase
which the Government now seem so fond of—to discuss this
rationally. No reasonable person doubts that the sorts of things set
out in clause 49 are revolting. They arouse our understandable and
natural personal distaste and revulsion. I just think we need to be
very careful about what we mean by “possession” Having
listened to the Minister say what she meant by possession, I think she
actually meant
“publication.” I
suspect that beyond the practical difficulty of policing the dirty old
man who creates drawings for himself and leaves them in his drawer and
shows them to nobody, the sorts of things the Minister was talking
about—forget the abhorrent nature of the images—are
things that appear to her, if I understand her correctly, to have been
uploaded on to the computer system, on to the web. To that extent, they
have been published, so there is no difference between us. She seems to
call that possession; I call it
publication. So
I think what we need to do between now and Royal Assent is to
understand what people mean by possession.
Maria
Eagle: Downloading.
Mr.
Garnier: I hear the Minister say
“downloading” from a sedentary position. There again, in
order for it to be downloaded, it must have been placed on the web by
somebody, so there is a publication on to the web address,
presumably— [Interruption] It is no
good the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth coming to
this debate late, and then uttering blasphemies while I am trying to
explain a rather difficult issue. If he wishes to intervene to say
something, I would be very happy to listen to
him.
Alun
Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op): The hon.
and learned Gentleman makes the point that I just entered the Committee
Room. I have not uttered a blasphemy: I expressed some surprise at the
approach he is taking. I think it would surprise the general
public.
Mr.
Garnier: If the right hon. Gentleman had been here
throughout the debate, he would have understood precisely what I was
saying. The Minister has had the courtesy to listen to what I had to
say, and I suspect
there is not the difference between us that the
right hon. Gentleman—who uttered what I would describe as a
blasphemy—suspects.
Between now
and Royal Assent we have to be careful to make sure what we mean by
“possession.” As I understand from what the Minister said
a moment ago, she is talking about publication. It is the transfer of
an image from its creator on to the web and from the web to somebody
else’s screen. That is publication. It may also happen to be
possession, but publication is what we are talking about. If she leaves
it as simply possession, as it is currently in the Bill, we shall be in
the ludicrous position where the thought police will go around looking
into people’s top right-hand drawers.
I can see
what will happen. Somebody will be raided for some other suspected
offence—handling stolen goods or possession of drugs—and
the police will search the premises and find in this imbecile’s
top right-hand drawer an image that falls within clause 49(2). He will
then fall foul of being charged with that offence, albeit that that
disgusting image has never been seen by anybody else apart from the
person who has been raided for drugs or possessing stolen
goods.
I will leave
it there, but I think we need to be careful about this. I refuse to be
put off the case I am making simply because the subject we are talking
about is one that arouses entirely proper revulsion. But,
Mr. Gale, I ask you to ask the Committee if I can shut up
and sit down. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 49
ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses
50 and 51 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
52Meaning
of “image” and
“child”
Jenny
Willott: I beg to move amendment 489, in
clause 52, page 31, line 27, leave
out ‘image (produced by any means)’ and insert
‘computer-generated
image’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: amendment 490, in clause 52, page 31, line 41, at beginning
insert ‘a reasonable person would consider
that’. Amendment
491, in
clause 52, page 32, line 1, leave
out paragraph
(b).
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