Having thought about this a bit I think JK's parallel to works of fiction involving crime is not the only issue, although he makes a valid point.

The important issue is being a third party to a crime. If somebody is handling stolen goods that is an offence. A lesser offence than actually stealing but it remains an offence and to compare that to reading a crime novel doesn't mitigate it.

Looking at child porn is a third party offence. The arguments such as they didn't perpetuate the offence would apply to somebody knowingly handling stolen goods.

For those reasons I would accept that viewing child porn is justified as a punishable offence in the same way I agree knowingly handling stolen goods is a punishable offence.

Your reply to Adrian and rodbull is an excellent one, JK. I fear we are already well down the path towards the potential society you suggest.

A few weeks ago at work, a few colleagues were discussing the Langham case and were in the hanging is too good for him camp. I wanted to add my opinion, but thought better of it. They would have heard but not listened to what I said and would undoubtedly have labelled me a sympathizer of child pornography. A situation not too dissimilar to being too scared to pass a public opinion in Nazi Germany.

The judicial system, thought fascism, unintelligent opinions of the masses shouting everyone else down- I find it all very disturbing

I believe that sending Langham to prison will serve no purpose whatsoever.
The sentence he has been handed is not even long enough for him to complete any rehabilitation programmes.(Not that I believe they are effective anyway).
His career is obviously in ruins whether he had been sent to prison or not.
From what I have seen of Langham I am not sure he can bounce back in the same way in which JK has after he has completed his sentence.

Yes I have no sympathy for Langham; I can't understand why anyone would want to view kiddy porn, I hate his stupid "research" excuse and I think he must be brain dead to download it knowing the ease of tracking such things.

But the general question is - should we be locking people up for thought crimes? Are we not simply avoiding finding the real villains? More time and efficiency spent on tracking and trapping the killer of Milly Dowler. Less time on saddos like Langham.

JK2006 wrote:
Yes I have no sympathy for Langham; I can't understand why anyone would want to view kiddy porn, I hate his stupid "research" excuse and I think he must be brain dead to download it knowing the ease of tracking such things.

But the general question is - should we be locking people up for thought crimes? Are we not simply avoiding finding the real villains? More time and efficiency spent on tracking and trapping the killer of Milly Dowler. Less time on saddos like Langham.
He's been locked up for being in possession of something not for thinking something. We aren't locking people up for merely thinking a thing.

Please refer to my earlier post.

Statistically, more people go on to commit a sex offence after viewing adult porn than after viewing child porn. You'll have to take my word for that on here, although anyone can apply for information from the relevent government departments. The number of people who do commit a more serious offence after viewing porn is very low. There are few cases where such a crime has been committed after viewing child porn, and then there is no proven direct link between the two.

The prosecution of people such as Langham is for the purposes of public pacification; not unlike the Romans throwing Christians to the lions. The public, but more so the media, demand their pound of flesh. It is very difficult to track the people who abuse the children and create the porn as they operate mainly from other nations, so it is deemed necessary to hang a few minor offenders to give the impression of positive action.

It is true that Langham broke the law and, therefore, should pay a penalty. However, while resources are concentrated on such small fish, the bigger ones continue to swim free. No child is saved from abuse by the jailing of Mr Langham. The porn business continues to flourish.

The rate of re-offending by sex offenders is between 2% and 5% of those on the register. This was the figure even before the register, and so it could be argued that the register had little effect other than to calm a misinformed public. In fact, since those on the register can now be submitted to further conditions and restrictions on their liberty without re-offending and without judicial review, it could be argued that it increases the risk. It removes the carrot while leaving the stick in place.

Society has much to learn before it realises the folly of current policies. For some, these lessons will be very painful.

So Langham is the symbol of western evil? An easy target. He's British, he's white, he's middle aged. He had a computer. Curiosity? Think!! The only way to bring the peddlars of the child porn industry to book is to view the stuff they are churning out. Unless we pretend it doesn't exist. It is wrong that Langham should emerge as the 'face of evil'. Forget the fact that those who are doing the 'child snatching' and are stood behind the lens are NOT pasty faced, middle class, middle aged Brits. But it's what the British justice system does best isn't it? Instead of demonising Langham, perhaps the police would be better to trace where his credit card details ended up. But that would take some effort. Much easier to crucify Langham. Chris Langham didn't sit down and create this stuff. He merely uncovered it. We may as well criminalise anyone who shops at PC world. But so long as they are white, middle aged men. I despair!

When it is possible to find the creators of these pictures they are pursued and prosecuted. Those who do it don't exactly advertise their home address. It is easier to hide than it is to find.

You don't know who is behind the camera, you cannot say who they are not.

Chris Langham has been rightfully prosecuted for possession of child porn, true he didn't make it but "Somebody committed a worse crime than I did" is not a sound defence.

The bit about PC World is just silly - not just in the above post but elsewhere people are focusing on an aspect as if it were the whole and using that to make a spurious point.

Chris Langham is a third-party in the same way a fence is a third party to theft. Both are rightly criminal offences and if anyone knows why they are not I would like to know.

firstly- I find it very difficult to see how looking at photographs of anything can possibly be considered a crime.
Especially as in this particular crime-it's the only one I can think of where those who arrest, prosecute and sentence also "commit" the crime as well-by viewing the offensive material. They do exactly as the accused does-a unique position.

However I don't condone the abuse of children physically, mentally or for the purposes of producing illicit porn. I find it abhorrent.

But I do have a very big problem with the often repeated furphy that the accused-say Langham-has helped contribute to the crime of child porn production ,as was said by the sentencing judge. How the hell does he know ?.

Even the most ignorant of the ways of the net must by now know that it's virtually ungovernable. There are thousands-probably millions of adult web sites that are full of material just ripped off and cobbled together from existing available porn.

Child porn is also distributed between the like minded via chat sites. In fact-although I have no proof-I bet more child porn is available freely on the net than via pay websites.

The idea that an accused contributes to the whole of a criminal enterprise by his/her sole participation is a form of "collective guilt"-an abhorent concept. In other words-every German citizen was responsible for the Holocaust or every teen in the UK today who pops an exstacy pill is responsible for the biggest criminal enterprise on this planet-drug pushing. If we use the same analogy as the judge did in Langham's case: any person arrested for even the smallest amount of illicit drugs must share the blame for the entire drug business including the bunper crops of heroin in Afghanistan and be punished accordingly. And of course-the illegal drug trade is responsible for thousands of deaths a year and for hundreds of murders.

But this particular crime has been singled out by those in authority and the media who need someone to bash hysterically-which is so much easier than helping prevent the deaths by malnutrition and diseases of 30,000 children every day-or helping third world countries improve their economies to the point where children need not be exploited by porn or corporate merchants.

veritas wrote:
firstly- I find it very difficult to see how looking at photographs of anything can possibly be considered a crime.
Especially as in this particular crime-it's the only one I can think of where those who arrest, prosecute and sentence also "commit" the crime as well-by viewing the offensive material. They do exactly as the accused does-a unique position.

Do you find it difficult to see having possession of a DVD player a crime, is someone knowingly handling stolen goods doing no wrong whatsoever?

The police handle stolen goods, are they "committing" the same crime as a fence?

Where can the police find special people who can tell if a picture is an offence without looking at it?

I have to say that I agree with Zooloo entirely. I don't know the specifics of the Langham issue, so I won't refer to it (although let's remember the images were Grade 5, which includes the worst images of sadism and bestiality. I have to ask myself: would he have a stash of heroin in his home if he was researching drugs? I think not). But to say that watching child porn is something akin to a personal preference and that disapproving of it is "thought policing" is dangerous.

The porn industry is exactly that: a business with workers, producers, distributors and consumers. Child porn is something else: by definition it is the recording of a violent crime against an unwilling victim as they are under age. Therefore, downloading it is a third party crime.

Might I refer you to the recent case of Timothy Cox, the self-styled "Son of God".

observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2163408,00.html

Specifically concerning the police: "In total, 31 children and babies, 20 from Britain, had to be rescued by officers following the raid on Cox's parents' home."

Concerning the link between watching and partaking: "One convicted paedophile has described how curiosity quickly led to child abuse. 'The more I see the pictures, the more I'm going to want to do something. It's just the next step before you start abusing,' he says. Behaviour analysts working for CEOP call this the 'spiral of abuse'. Their research indicates that a predilection that was once suppressed is now shared in forums where paedophiles swap ideas and develop fantasies. Cox, like many paedophiles, was described by police as someone utterly 'obsessed' with collecting and distributing images of child abuse."

I know there are lots of side issues around this - the actual age of consent, the legal process in the UK, the role of media - but let's not forget the basic issue of child porn: the infliction of suffering on a non-consenting victim and the subsequent exploitation of the images.

The point I was trying to make earlier is that how Langham and his ilk are made into the 'faces' that represent the child porn industry, whilst those ditributing the filth remain unseen. What is wholly wrong is that very few people understand how the child porn industry (and it is an industry) actually operates. They know nothing about where the children come from, where the chain begins, and who holds the purse strings. I'm not saying Langham shouldn't be punished, but what alarms me is the lethargy involved...let's wheel Langham out as the demon and try not to think about the sickening industry that lies behind it all. Anotherwords crucifying Chris Langham isn't going to alter a god damn thing.

I don't think your analogy is valid. The police don't 'possess' a stolen dvd player by handling-but if they look at the same pics as Langham, they are doing exactly what he did.

Where do we find the right policeman to look at the pics ?..no idea. My extensive dealings with the police is that I wouldn't trust a single one of them, which doesn't mean I haven't met some highly honourable and honest cops. Also-you would have to be pretty naive to not know that exhibits-dvd players, drugs, child porn go missing from police lock-ups every day of the week.

I'm probably not making my point clear: I'm not defending Langham and as Michael points out they were 'grade 5' ( I didn't even know they graded this stuff) I guess they were pretty bad. So Langham is certainly one sad bastard.

But it's the media hysteria that frightens me especially when the self-appointed 'victims' groups get involved calling for "tougher sentences". The media loves this stuff because it involves sex and sex sell. They ignore the overwhelming amount of other child abuse-mental and physical (non sexual) that is destroying thousands of young lives in the UK...far more than sexual abuse cases.

And I can see the same happening in the UK that is occuring in the USA. An example:

6 months ago an 18 yr old boy has sex with his 16 yr old girlfriend after dating 18 months and deciding to finally 'do it'. They take nude pics of each other on their mobile phones an email them to each other . The girl's mum finds the pics on her computer-calls the cops and the result:
Both the boy and the girl are charged with producing child pornography ( a possible 10 year sentence). The boy is charged with sexual assault (the legal age in the state is 18). They want to marry-they'll have to wait until they get out of jail and if they have children, those kids will have to live with knowledge that both their parents are registered sex offendors for life.

As for Langham-he got the right sentence and probably nixed his career for life.

The obvious difference being that murder novels are a product of someone's imagination, whereas child porn is a recording of an event of child sexual abuse.

There's a world of difference and that's not a very good analogy JK.