got off quite lightly under the circumstances

Whilst I can't see why anybody would want to look at porn, let alone kiddie porn, let alone violent, I feel very uncomfortable about jailing people for doing so.

It is very close to jailing people who read murder novels.

They made a real meal of the case,especially the pathetic way they tried to link him having sex with an underage girl.That failed,but it was put in deliberately to put a link between viewing images and having sex.
Pics like that are of course undesirable,but I agree with the JK senario about murder novels.Also will jailing him at huge public expense expose him to people who may well turn him off pics,and onto the real thing?
These type of prison terms are more about looking tough to the voters,not about solving a problem.

Jailing Langham solves absolutely nothing. The hard to find freaks who produce this material and post it on the net are the ones we need protection from.

Jailing people for what they watch in the privacy of their own home is almost as disturbing as the stuff they are watching.

Agree with all of the above.

When I said he got off lightly - what I meant was that I expected (not wanted) a longer sentence given that the trial had had so much publicity.

He'll serve half - 5 months - minus the month he's already served on remand?

Agree, they are having their cake and eating it here. On the one hand they want to label Langham a Paedophile which is classed as a psychiatric condition under the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic manual (DSM-IV-R) but then take a different angle and seek a punitive approach by locking him up for as long as possible.

The truth is that such things are not well understood. We are only 40 years on from homosexuality being considered in the same way and although it's now legal just consider many people's views on it today...

And JK is quite right too that the cake continues to be eaten because Langham is classified as a party to the abuse by merely viewing although much mainstream entertainment involves murder, rape and many other things considered ungentlemanly

Langham is very arguably a thought criminal and it is worth noting that 'indeterminate' jail sentences have now been handed out for porn viewing only. Release is dependent - theoretically on the danger you pose - but you never actually hurt anyone in the first place....

Solihull is also right but in a way tis a bigger picture we've been through here before which shows well how flawed our 'justice' system is.

I've had a belly full of the 'hang him high' crowd the last hour around and about though.

We've killed a million people in Iraq for oil, we're destroying our planet, kids are stabbing each other to death on the streets every day and yet the morally superior lynch mobs out for Langhams, the McCanns and more wonder why the world they live in is crap missing the irony that because they want to lock up for life or execute anyone that looks funny to them that the world would be a better place.

They have the world they deserve though.

Langham seems to be having a different experience of Kent's government hotels though JK, having claim to have been abused, had his food spat in, intimidated etc.

Well I don't believe anything I read in the media and as far as HMP Elmley is concerned... the food was (and I assume still is) served by VP inmates so they won't be spitting in it!

Incidentally if Chris is reading this, the ham is excellent and order fruit and veg on the canteen - good groceries in those areas, bad list otherwise.

I only got picked on once in my 8 months there and the sad loony whose teeth were missing came out far worse in the verbal encounter, as I gave him a savaging and all the other inmates jeered at him.

You get a mention on the BBC regarding this JK -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6995774.stm

Well spotted ITK.

And remarkably accurate, a surprise for a change!

Anyone notice how there's always local Rentacop available to say "these are some of the worst images I've ever seen as a police officer"?

On the steps of the court?

Deja vu?

Anyone who downloads images of children being sexually abused deserves to go to prison because they are perpetuating child abuse.

Is 'everyone innocent'? Langham didn't just look. He was actively promoting and funding the kidnap and horrific torture of young children. A lot of these children are taken from the jaws of abject poverty; the middle east,India, Thailand and South America in particular. They have no jury, no trial, no defence. They are imprisoned, and then violated to feed the sick fantasies of western men such as Langham. Sorry to be the party pooper.

Adrian and Redbull; you are both quite entitled to your opinion which I suspect is the majority one.

If you are right, that viewing such pictures (whether or not they are computer graphically created or otherwise manufactured) provokes abuse, then I agree - we should track down everyone turned on by such things and lock them all up.

But surely logic decrees that so should we find and imprison those fascinated by murder, causing such crimes to flourish, and terrorism (in many cases we are) and drug use and rape, domestic violence etc.

Why only pick on those who look at kiddie porn? Are those who enjoy watching men beat up women and vice versa any better? Or is encouraging that crime less vile?

Everyone who watches James Bond take pleasure in wiping out villains is inspiring such acts in real life.

We then go down the rap lyric path.

Yes, you are in the majority and this is happening. Censorship has moved into the justice system. From banning kiddie porn we have started locking people up - not for making it but for viewing it.

If you've ever stared - intrigued and horrified - at Holocaust victims or at Sadaam being executed, you are encouraging such things to be filmed, photographed and to take place.

That's the logic of your argument. Be prepared to go all the way. But I warn you - you will be trapped in the eventual clamp down yourself, somewhere or other. As long as you're happy with that, keep smashing the glass.

"(...) is very close to jailing people who read murder novels."

The difference is: writers don't kill to write their stories. And the actors in James Bond (and other movies) are free to decide if they want to be involved (and they are very well paid).

My point precisely DJ - don't jail those who view, jail those who make.

Don't jail readers of murder novels or viewers of James Bond but jail those who kill in real life.

I think Mr Langham made rather a mistake in not highlighting that view in his case.

For myself and most others, what he has admitted to viewing, lies in Room 101,two corridors down from Winston`s rats.

Maybe he should be credited for not trying to blame such traders in filth and setting the blame at his own table, who can say?

It was hardly a case trial for the issues involved, and will be viewed in the future as a "another celeb falling from grace" story.

Nothing gained, nobody helped, nothing achieved but more , even more, publicity for a disgusting grey area of hell.

JK2006 wrote:
Anyone notice how there's always local Rentacop available to say "these are some of the worst images I've ever seen as a police officer"?


..... and I bet he had to look many times !

I wonder just how many hours the police spend looking at mucky videos etc at the police station (and whether they "take their work home"?)

A few years ago, while I was working as a freelance photographer, I had among my books one called Photographing Children, which I'd bought in a High Street store. It had a full colour cover of a naked young boy jumping over a sandcastle.

When I scaled down my photography I had a general clear out and that book went with several others. Considering the hyped concern over images of naked children I asked a lawyer friend if I'd be breaking the law today if I still had the book. He said no, it would only be of concern if the image was on my computer.

Not so long ago the BBC showed a documentary about the British water authorities. They included a piece of film of a young boy climbing into a bath, full frontal nudity. There are also books featuring such images in the local library, and many legal DVDs such as Angela's Ashes, Tom Brown's School Days, Lord Of The Flies, etc. But it seems that all these images would only be illegal if they were saved on our computers.

Reason for mentioning this is that several people have been convicted recently of having similar non sexual images of children on their computers. This places them on the sex offenders register and basically ruins their lives, even though others own similar images, quite legally, in different formats.

It's a weird society we have created.

You might say though JK that those who 'make' are only fulfilling their part of the relationship with those who 'view' as without one there would surely be no other....you might say that takes us exactly back to rape and murder and worse being in mainstream movie and drama entertainment which we all consume frequently so we are only one step removed.

Langham, however, was caught via his credit card details evidently so by purchasing what he did it becomes a commercial relationship and the argument for Langham as participant is more logical than say someone just surfing and finding illegal porn posted on message boards or downloading something from a filesharing website that is mis-labelled for example.

I think the argument still stands though that fiction crime is still death or rape by proxy for the consumer i.e. that it is not possible to conduct the actual act so you author/consume something in its place for the purposes of entertainment.

Fisk does a piece on Capital Punishment and links it more to ghoulish entertainment than a sharp observation of justice being seen to be done.

news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2964521.ece

I made the point earlier though that the 'mainstream' view essentially follows the path of bloodlust from a supposedly morally superior vantage point in which case this naturally generates and deserves the society it gets.

Rodhull and emo - you'll find - if you research - that westerners are a small customer group in the Asiasn sex industry and children are often sold or rented by their families as a means of escaping or alleviating their abject poverty. Perhaps you might target your anger at corrupt Asian governments who allow such things to perpetuate and/or turn a blind eye to people/sex trafficking/slavery/prostitution.

And if everyone is so concerned about Mr. Langham perhaps they might spare a thought for all the people being repressed, exploited and brutalised around the world.

is not our passivity about such things around the world the real crime here. The mainstream 'disgust' view on Langham may appeal the moral conscience of the average Daily Mail reader and make them think they're good people but our government(s) are party to many a dark crime and if you really want to do something good for the world there are plenty of better things to do.

Britain right now is equivalent to the 'Guns and butter' philosophy used in Germany in the 30s. We're more interested in the value of our house and our second home than what is really going on in the world.

JK2006 wrote:
My point precisely DJ - don't jail those who view, jail those who make.

Don't jail readers of murder novels or viewers of James Bond but jail those who kill in real life.

How many readers of James Bond go on to commit murder?

How many viewers of child porn go on to commit offences against children?

I am asking a genuine question, I don't know the numbers.

It is an interesting point you make.