A question about Nirvana’s album, Nevermind.
Under current UK law is this child pornography?
Nirvana: Nevermind
In
6 responses
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It depends on whether a court finds it ‘indecent’. There’s a popular belief that naked photos of children are classed as illegal child pornography, and that clothed photos of children are not – however, that is not what the law says.
In the case of someone with photos of their toddler playing naked in the garden (or of the Nirvana album cover), the pictures are clearly not ‘indecent’ and therefore there’s no case to answer – conversely, in the case of someone found with 100,000 pictures of kids in their underwear, a court may decide that they are. -
The law is very vague, it is anything that considered to be obscene involving anybody that an experienced police officer believes to be under 18. It doesn’t matter if they are over the age of consent, are known to be over the age of consent, and look like they are over the age of consent, it could still be illegal. Photos like that might (or might.not) be covered depending on what people think they make the possessors think. Not a good law,
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Forgive me if I point out that the central apendage is in fact a TOE – the end of the child’s left foot.
Doesthis affect the debate?
Alan Douglas -
Alan,
No. Regardless of whether we are talking phalange or genitalia – this would appear to be COPINE scale level 1 stuff: “Images depicting nudity or erotic posing with no sexual activity”.
Similarly, the early Sam Fox page 3 pictures from when she was 16 (and for the remaining 14 months until her 18th birthday) would count too – can we please, please get Rebekah Wade convicted for this? It would be so appropriate.
Also, I quote from Section 22 of the sentencing guidelines:
“and that any element of commercial gain will place an offence at a high level of seriousness.”
I note with glee (in the putative case of Regina versus Wade and News Corporation – I really couldn’t care less about Nirvana):
“36. A custodial sentence of between 12 months and three years will, in the Panel’s view, be appropriate where:
…
(c) the offender had been involved with the production of, or traded in, material at levels 1-3.” -
How long a sentence might Rev. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland etc) have got for taking and retaining photographs of young girls “undraped”?
“He only felt at ease in the company of little girls, whom he told many stories. When he was with them he did not stutter. He was fond of little girls, but not of boys, nor babies. He especially liked girls in the age of 8 to 12. He had many child friends, although most of the time he did not keep them very long, and wrote them many letters with lots of kisses. If he went on a train journey or to the beach, he always made sure that he had plenty of games and puzzles with him in case he met a new little girl. Alice Liddell was one of his favourites. . . ”
http://www.pancakeparlour.com/Wonderland/Wonderland/Lewis_Carroll/Alicephots/Charlesphotos/charlesphotos.html
Princeton University library maintains a large archive of Charles Dodgson’s photography of which only a modest selection is accessible on the web:
http://people.virginia.edu/~ds8s/carroll/dodgson.html#ALICE.html -
Alan – no, it’s very clearly a penis. Unless the poor child is a eunuch with a hideously deformed leg and foot, that is.
Wikipedia reports that they were going to airbrush out the offending willy, but Mr Cobain (who, despite being a junkie whose meagre talent appeared to desert him a good couple of years before he topped himself, was occasionally quite amusing) refused, saying the only compromise he’d accept was a sticker bearing the legend “If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile”.
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