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LONDON (AFP) - Watching and possessing images of rape and sexual torture is to be made a criminal offence, punishable with a jail term of up to three years.
The plan follows a campaign by two MPs and the mother of a schoolteacher who was killed in 2003.
Violent Internet pornography was implicated in the trial of the man convicted of her murder.
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said there was an urgent need to tackle the problem because such images were becoming more easily available on the Internet and control of their distribution more difficult.
The new laws -- which will cover pornography online and offline -- will ban possession of images depicting "scenes of extreme sexual violence", plus other obscene material like bestiality or necrophilia.
For example, it would cover violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in "serious and disabling injury".
Britain's Obscene Publications Act 1959 currently bans the publication and distribution of such material, but not its possession.
Under the proposals, the maximum penalty for publication, distribution and possession for gain of obscene pornography would also be increased from three to five years' imprisonment.
The Home Office said they did not intend to target people who accidentally access obscene pornography nor those working within the mainstream adult entertainment industry, which works within existing obscenity laws.
The project is in response to a consultation launched last year and comes after a 50,000-signature petition against extreme Internet sites promoting violence against women for sexual gratification was presented to parliament.
LONDON (AFP) - Watching and possessing images of rape and sexual torture is to be made a criminal offence, punishable with a jail term of up to three years.
The plan follows a campaign by two MPs and the mother of a schoolteacher who was killed in 2003.
Violent Internet pornography was implicated in the trial of the man convicted of her murder.
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said there was an urgent need to tackle the problem because such images were becoming more easily available on the Internet and control of their distribution more difficult.
The new laws -- which will cover pornography online and offline -- will ban possession of images depicting "scenes of extreme sexual violence", plus other obscene material like bestiality or necrophilia.
For example, it would cover violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in "serious and disabling injury".
Britain's Obscene Publications Act 1959 currently bans the publication and distribution of such material, but not its possession.
Under the proposals, the maximum penalty for publication, distribution and possession for gain of obscene pornography would also be increased from three to five years' imprisonment.
The Home Office said they did not intend to target people who accidentally access obscene pornography nor those working within the mainstream adult entertainment industry, which works within existing obscenity laws.
The project is in response to a consultation launched last year and comes after a 50,000-signature petition against extreme Internet sites promoting violence against women for sexual gratification was presented to parliament.
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