news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/10299197.stm


The court heard that he is one of the world's leading experts in his field and his work has saved countless lives.

His wife of 29 years and colleagues from the academic world were in court.

At an earlier hearing at Newcastle Crown Court, Kehoe admitted four specimen charges of making indecent images of children.

Prosecutor Paul Rowland said: "Mr Kehoe was extremely candid with interviewing officers, extremely co-operative and accepted he had downloaded these images over a period of time.

"He was somewhat vague as to why he had downloaded them."


So he's currently suspended from his job, his reputation is ruined, and it's plausible to assume that many people will die (including children) because this man will probably no longer be able to carry out his ground breaking scientific work (and save more lives).

All because he clicks on his computer mouse in the privacy of his own home in a way that the state classifies as a thought crime.

And yet, at the same time, websites are free to make money from publishing videos of men being heheaded and pictures of children with their bodies torn apart from accidents or explosions. Not to mention 4 year olds being traumatised and exploited for millions of adults on shows like BGT.

What a strange, strange world.

Few would argue that receiving stolen goods should be punishable as a criminal offence since it perpetuates theft and robbery. Without such unscrupulous customers, thieves and robbers would become redundant. It is the same with sexual assault/abuse of children. Those that view images of sexual assault/abuse of children for gratification perpetuate the abuse and are morally and criminally accountable.
Doctors save many lives each year also but no group should be exempt from a law that seeks to protect innocent unwilling minors from sexual assault and abuse. Should such images be legally available for all to download? Level 4 are apparently quite sick!

Your analogy with handling stolen goods is completely invalid.

1/ How do you know that those who view pictures of abuse perpetuate that abuse? Where is the proof of this - or even any rational argument? It's just an assumption. I can see that in certain cases only - paying to view pictures of a child being sexually assaulted where the child was assaulted for the purposes of the images being shown on a website for profit. There are NO websites in existance of that nature and any such sites would be closed down and their owners arrested by the FBI within days.

Anything less than that and and the causal link between the abuse and the viewing is extremely speculative and any such link likely to be highly diffuse. Let's say some paedophiles in Thailand are abusing 5 year olds just so that others around the world can get off on the pictures (highly unlikely - surely the filming for others aspect is just an extra to the abuse?). I'm sure for these people just 2 or 3 people looking at those pics would have been enough for the thrill of having an audience. Therefore you cannot say that any one individual is responsible for causing the abuse through viewing it as likely thousands would have viewed it and no possession of child porn laws would prevent at least a few viewing pictures of the abuse, no matter how draconianly enforced.

2/ you didn't answer my point about why the violent (non-sexual) abuse of children and others is not only fully legal to view and own, but perfectly legal for webmasters to profit from. When Iraqi terrorists were beheading western hostages, the entire motivation was the knowledge that MILLIONS of Americans and Brits would go to websites to view the videos (and affect their support for the war, or to stop any wish to go to Iraq and support the reconstruction). This isn't speculative, this is an obvious fact. If NOBODY, or even FEW, people gave in to the morbid temptation to click on a mouse to watch a human being having his head sawn off, Kenneth Bigely and all the others would now almost certainly be alive (or at least not suffered their cruel fate).

Therefore, if this microbiologist is somehow responsible for perpetuating the abuse of children and deserves to have his life destroyed, surely everybody who has watched a beheading from Iraq (apparently 2/3 of the American population) deserves to be put on death row for assisting murder?

3/ I can't recall the definition of level 4 child porn, but I do remember being struck by the fact that no mention of age is mentioned in each category. Level 5 is for abuse involving bondage, force, beastiality. I would assume therefore that level 4 is for hardcore sex. We don't know what the microbiologist viewed. It might have been merely videos of 17 year old Dutch girls having multiple-orgasms with their boyfriends - videos that were perfectly legal only 10 years ago before femi-nazis deemed otherwise.

4/ when the police say 'downloaded and then deleted' that can mean just viewing a gallery of thumbnails and then emptying your recycle bin (i.e.NOT saving the images to your harddisk). 22 of the images were of level 4. He might have just been flicking through random porn galleries and forensics recovered traces of thumbnails of level 4 pictures.

Finally to answer your question 'should images of unwilling minors be available for everybody to legally download?' - no, they should not be available to download legally or illegally. The police should concentrate all their resources on closing down the supply. The reason for these ridiculous laws is that the police want 99% of the male population criminilized (if you've clicked on a Daily Mail picture of Miley Cryus pole dancingthen you have level 1 child porn on your hard disk) and able to be removed from society whenever they choose so. Also, it leads to fewer people being brave enough to speak out against these laws.

Laws that criminilize a small minority people in their own homes might be justified if there was proof of a causal link to a serious crime, but you have to be a fascist to agree if an entirely speculative link means MILLIONS are criminilized for clicking a mouse.

We live in a Kafkaesque society where everybody is guilty and at the mercy of the whims of the state. I've found the only solution is to 1/ don't ever surf for porn 2/ get a good family filter that will block even a picture of miley cyrus in a short dress.

Just found the definitions for each band :

Level one - Images of erotic posing, with no sexual activity,

Level two - non -penetrative sexual activities between children, or solo masturbation by a child;

Level three - non-penetrative sexual activity between adults and children;

Level four - penetrative sexual activity involving a child or children, or both children and adults;

Level five - sadism or involving the penetration of, or by, an animal.


So we have no idea whatsoever if the (22) level 4 images he viewed were 'quite sick' or of 'unwilling minors'. They might have been pictures of 2 17 year olds f*****g in one of the 150 odd countries in the world were 17 year olds f****g is not illegal. Where would that leave your 'perpetuating abuse' argument?

It is also worth mentioning that a huge percentage of porn is, I gather, either non existent people in Photoshop images or actresses and actors graphically altered.

Pop wrote:
Few would argue that receiving stolen goods should be punishable as a criminal offence since it perpetuates theft and robbery. Without such unscrupulous customers, thieves and robbers would become redundant. It is the same with sexual assault/abuse of children. Those that view images of sexual assault/abuse of children for gratification perpetuate the abuse and are morally and criminally accountable.
Doctors save many lives each year also but no group should be exempt from a law that seeks to protect innocent unwilling minors from sexual assault and abuse. Should such images be legally available for all to download? Level 4 are apparently quite sick!

Hey Pop what about the defending counsel, coppers , judge and jury who look at pics during the trial ? If 'looking' at the pic perpetuates the crime, is it temporarily suspended ?

How do you know people rob and steal to sell on ?...I haven't heard of many bank robbers handing out their stolen cash.

veritas wrote:
Pop wrote:
Few would argue that receiving stolen goods should be punishable as a criminal offence since it perpetuates theft and robbery. Without such unscrupulous customers, thieves and robbers would become redundant. It is the same with sexual assault/abuse of children. Those that view images of sexual assault/abuse of children for gratification perpetuate the abuse and are morally and criminally accountable.
Doctors save many lives each year also but no group should be exempt from a law that seeks to protect innocent unwilling minors from sexual assault and abuse. Should such images be legally available for all to download? Level 4 are apparently quite sick!

Hey Pop what about the defending counsel, coppers , judge and jury who look at pics during the trial ? If 'looking' at the pic perpetuates the crime, is it temporarily suspended ?

How do you know people rob and steal to sell on ?...I haven't heard of many bank robbers handing out their stolen cash.
There is a big difference between downloading images of sexual abuse and viewing them as evidence. A moral difference, besides, it is the downloading and not the viewing which is the crime as far as I am aware. Of course, it there is a legitimate reason for such downloads , a successful defence could be made.
Should my goods ever be stolen, I would rightly hold both the thief and any receiver that knowingly received the goods, accountable. The same applies if a young son or daughter of mine was sexually abused and the images posted online. I would hold both the abuser and downloader accountable, also any other complicit party.

Blackit wrote:
Just found the definitions for each band :

Level one - Images of erotic posing, with no sexual activity,

Level two - non -penetrative sexual activities between children, or solo masturbation by a child;

Level three - non-penetrative sexual activity between adults and children;

Level four - penetrative sexual activity involving a child or children, or both children and adults;

Level five - sadism or involving the penetration of, or by, an animal.


So we have no idea whatsoever if the (22) level 4 images he viewed were 'quite sick' or of 'unwilling minors'. They might have been pictures of 2 17 year olds f*****g in one of the 150 odd countries in the world were 17 year olds f****g is not illegal. Where would that leave your 'perpetuating abuse' argument?

I can see your point about 17 year olds. Not knowing the specifics of this case and conceding that a willing 17 year old participant would differ greatly from an unwilling prepubescent child, my position that in the case of the latter, the issue is black and white whilst in the case of the former, I would say the offence is only technical and the perpetrator should be shown leniency.

you are legally wrong Pop- viewing is a crime as well.
Still no explanation...I know I'll never get it.

I know of no crime on this planet...no court in the world where the crime is allowed to be perpetuated again in a court during the process.

veritas wrote:
you are legally wrong Pop- viewing is a crime as well.
Still no explanation...I know I'll never get it.

I know of no crime on this planet...no court in the world where the crime is allowed to be perpetuated again in a court during the process.
So what is your postion and what would you like hchanged. Would you like the courts to stop viewing the pictures as evidence and perhaps just have a description read out or do you feel that it should be permissable to download all pictures of child sex abuse, even say, rape of a 3 year old, with no accountability?

Pop wrote:
veritas wrote:
you are legally wrong Pop- viewing is a crime as well.
Still no explanation...I know I'll never get it.

I know of no crime on this planet...no court in the world where the crime is allowed to be perpetuated again in a court during the process.
So what is your postion and what would you like hchanged.

The only thing I would like changed is attitude.

I reckon this issue is seen as a black and white situation when it is anything but and it's so overstated as it's one of the new bogeymen being perpetuated by those in authority..they always need a bogeyman whether it's the USSR, Jews ,Islamic terrorists, pedophiles or child porn merchants.

I seriously doubt the trade is anything nearly as presented and the other thread on Perez Hilton demonstrates that beliefs are entirely flexible depending on how the public is fooled.

And again-if a child is abused by a picture being 'looked at' as claimed by authorities, then how can you reconcile that images are used in court cases and seen by several people (presumably) or as in the case of the FBI (and I have no doubt British police) stored by them as they state in the tens of thousands with them regularly pouring over them trying to identify who is in the pics...especially when most of the stuff was produced some 40 years ago which is what real experts say.

The presumption that all these officers are pure is so fantastically nonsensical that it defies belief.

My personal view is that kiddie porn (which doesn't mean it isn't out there) was exagerated beyond all reason...as the Bush US AG Gonzales falsely claimed that there were a billion websites at any one time(did he count them all ?)..patent rubbish...as the intention was to control the anarchy of the internet. That didn't happen and looks like it has failed but like all perceived 'threats' that are exagerated and never questioned.(.and even asking questions also brings in itself a sort of accusatory tone in response) the damage is done.

And thus you have as you do in the USA, the UK and most of the western developed countries, appalling child abuse of all kinds claiming tens of thousands of victims every year as authorities egged on by the media concentrate on just sex abuse cases...minute by comparison to other abuse.

However you may be an expert and be able to prove otherwise but I doubt it -and I would never believe those in authority who have a vested interest in promoting fear-I personally cannot see why this microbiologist should have his life completely destroyed which is what will happen, along with his family member's lives, when the correct thing should be is that he pays the due penance for his crime and then is able to resurrect his life.

That will never happen as hysteria rules !

And it's getting worse...in my 60 years I have never seen the planet in such hysteria mode..we as a race are careering backwards at an ever increasing rate and it's going to end in tears. We are not a civilised race and that is perfectly exampled by our leaders who are collectively responsible for hundreds of thousands of horrible deaths but escape scot free ir are even applauded by a microbilogist who may have more to offer than any of these creeps will never have the chance as society demands he pays penance his entire life.

rant ends here.

I feel the case for viewing pictures in court as evidence is another in itself certainly merits consideration as regards the necessity and morality of such pictorial evidence.
I also agree that there is hysteria over paedophiles as shown on the 'Brass eye' spoof news program.
Am I correct in my understanding of your position that whilst you are opposed to real life child abuse (where there is a very young victim of rape for instance), you believe that persons should be free to download , view, and store images that child abuse for personal gratification?

absolutely not and I have not said that or given that indication.

I'm more disappointed about the whole hysteria and hypocrisy that surrounds any sort of discussion or the implementation of laws whenever the subject of sex is involved.

It leads to the mania that you have in the USA where teenagers are declared 'sex offenders' for life which restricts where they can live, public vilification for life and idiotic rules like not being able to be in certain public areas like a park etc.

And that has now taken a further move with authorities deciding people can be incarcerated beyond their original sentence.

In the case of the microbiologist- although I cannot be sure but the reality is that after whatever sentence he gets (if he is guilty) he will be punished long after it in a continuing series of restrictions that have no logical sense but are brought about by media hysteria.

The same media-as in the Murdoch press that not only promotes porn and made money from it, helps promote hysteria that forces politicians to make laws that are not based upon research, the welfare of victims but on knee jerk reactions. Britain once had it's own identity which has now been submerged with that of the USA after decades of influence from the far right.

In fact I just watched a fascinating interview with the Mexican writer Lydia Cacho who exposed a dreadful situation of child abuse and porn rings in Cancun involving politicians etc....and I believe that the way in which we in countries like UK USA etc beat-up cases here we don't really give a stuff about what happens in the third world where - as an example..5 children a day die from neglect and abuse (non sexual) in the USA whereas child sexual abuse cases..a few are murdered every week.

Basically none of us give a flying f**k about those 5 who die every day but we are riveted by anything involving sex in the tabloids.

I do not have the solution but a thousand professionals should be able to get together to rationally discuss what changes should be brought about to solve certain problems but by even announcing they were doing that they would be howled down in the media.

Whilst I accept and agree with a lot of what you say regarding media feeding frenzy and public overreaction etc, this question still remains:-
Should be free to download , view, and store images that child abuse for personal gratification?
In the case of the microbiologist, we are not aware of the content of the pictures, only that he had 232 of them and some were level 4. The court was lenient, awarding £1200 costs and no custodial sentence. Do you believe that downloading images of child abuse should not be an offence?

Pop wrote:
Whilst I accept and agree with a lot of what you say regarding media feeding frenzy and public overreaction etc, this question still remains:-
Should be free to download , view, and store images that child abuse for personal gratification?
In the case of the microbiologist, we are not aware of the content of the pictures, only that he had 232 of them and some were level 4. The court was lenient, awarding £1200 costs and no custodial sentence. Do you believe that downloading images of child abuse should not be an offence?

I'm bored with this..read my answer again :

"absolutely not and I have not said that or given that indication"

and stop putting words into people's mouths.

Apologies, I actually missed that bit due to it being directly under the title. I think we are pretty much in agreement in that case.

no problems Pop !