Someone from the UK explain this
 

http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/pag...siteid=8602 4

While part of what this guy is charged with is CP, the article seems to imply that the mere possession and sale of porn is illegal in the UK?

WTF?

It might mean he was selling hardcore porn in his B & B without a license which is illegal.

Thats a badly written article.

Selling hardocre porn is illegal in the UK but it sounds like this guy was dealing CP and has other problems too :-

Stratton was put on probation for three years on condition he attended the Tay Project, a counselling scheme for sex offenders.

Selling hardcore porn is illegal unless the person has a license. To sell R18 videos, for example. They can't be sold by mail order either. But that doesn't stop some people. They (R18 videos) can be bought from UK based online sex shops. Kind of defeats the purpose of "no mail order".

Sounds like he was running the business out of his garden shed or some shit. Which is definately shady. When they swooped on in there, they probably found the child porn stashed away on his computer.

"advertising his sick trade."

Fucking tabloid assholes can't write anything without throwing their opinion in. I'd love to know how sex featuring consenting adults of legal age (or watching it) is "sick". Selling hardcore videos of was his trade. Not CP, clearly. There'd be a whole lot more than "two counts of CP posession" if that was the case. It'd be "intent to supply" at the least, and if he was selling CP then he wouldn't advertise it in his car window or in magazines. In short he wasn't selling CP. Looks like he had that for his own personal stash.

Misleading tabloid shit. I hope that whoever felt the need to throw their opinion in there, dies a horrible painful fucking death.

It is a badly written article but where on earth does it suggest he was dealing in CP? It mentions they accepted not guilty on 2 counts which probably means they spent a week combing the HD and found 2 pics on there which may have been CP but they couldn't prove one way or the other. In other words stuff you find on most legal teen sites. Were it real CP they would have had his ass over the coals.

Other than that sherbert sums it up. It's only legal if sold through a licensed shop. It's not illegal to own it though just to sell it if not through a shop. To be honest usually the police have better things to do and ignore it.

Internet 'normal' porn still remains a very grey area in the UK and so far the authorities have been happy if the hardcore's behind a paysite/AVS system. As to how long this will last.... Mind you, if they do clamp down on Internet porn there's a lot of big fish they'll grab 1st including people like David Sullivan.

Quick edit to add...

It's worth mentioning that the mail/sunday mail generally has an ultra-conservative, very anal, middle class, vocal minority readership. Sort of well known for it.

I see things getting more liberal. In the last few years licenced sex shops have been able to sell hardcore porn videos. The guy that was head of the film classification board until recently was outspoken about thinking the laws should be removed.

Just like pot it is a matter of who is going to be the brave politican to address the issue.

The laws in this country regarding what you can show on the adult tv channels are just stupid. Okay, so you can't show an erect penis and therefore can't show a woman going down on a guy unless you can't actually see the penetration. Yet, we were watching one night and there was a whole show of women going down on very realistic dildos. How stupid is that...just legalize it.

I honestly don't think they know what to do about internet porn. There have been a few very public cases of the gov't going after people who did CP or animal stuff. Other than that I don't think they want the trouble. I hope it stays that way.

Do you guys think that Britain tends to be more conservative or less than America on these things? Something that's crossed my mind while studying the Puritanical roots of American sociology.

UK seems to be a bit antiquated about hardcore pornagraphy, but TV in general seems to be a lot more liberal in the UK.

Just as an example:

We have a chat show with "Graham Norton" which is kind of risque. Apparantely when BBC America showed it in the US there's just some shows from that series they couldn't put on.

It is strange. In the UK you can show so much more on regular tv than you can even on most cable stations in the States. After 9pm at night you can swear, have both genders fully naked and it is prefectly fine. They have naked women in their newspapers everyday. Yet, you can not put a tape in your VCR and privately watch hardcore porn (well...a few videos are now legal but not many). However, in the states the TV censorship is high but you can view pretty much anything you want in private.

I suppose TV and film are governed by different bodies in the UK so the rules don't count for both of them.