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Censorship is a minefield : exercise your authoritarian traits to persecute the creators of erotic imagery and you fall foul of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. I for one have led you into the minefield

As a revolutionary film-maker I have stood in your courts and been sentenced to years in prison for producing films which the law said were obscene. That is "liable to deprave and corrupt those who were likely to come into contact with them". The censorship laws were an artificial device for imposing censorship of explicit sexual imagery. Your motivation was either moral or corruption. The corollary of censorship is corruption

I was acquitted under your Obscene Publications Act then you invented the Video Recordings Act. I tell you that it is one thing passing a law and another thing to get artists like myself to obey it. You know that the VRA 1984 is in breach of Article 10 of ECHR but as usual you carry on "farming" the pornography industry in Soho where there are more illegal shops than licensed.

The word "pornography" is not in the English law books and it has never been illegal to produce it. Also it has never been proven that anyone has been corrupted by a sexually explicit image.

Now your servants at the BBFC tell me that it is legal for me to produce sexually explicit imagery in films but I can't sell them to my customers but only to licensed sex shops! Thus the old Soho monopoly is kept intact

All other film-maker in Europe can sell their films in a free market but I cannot because I am living in England who are the exception to the rule.

How can pornography be a crime one year and legal the next? Can burglary suddenly become legal. Of course not! It seems as though you were wrong all along and now you must allow pornography. Of course you old boys in the Home Office don't want to allow it! We know that!

The truth is is that your laws were wrong and you sent innocent film-makers to prison. Even women such as Lynsey Drew? You are the phillistines and barbarians. The Home Office should give compensation to all film-makers and photographers who were was imprisoned under the Obscene Pubilications Act for producing subject matter that is now legal.
Mike Freeman

Film-maker

Hear, hear!


Officer Dibble

Unfortunately many people have had to suffer in the fight for freedom, however the morality merchants are now in retreat and although there?s probably still much more injustice to come, the tide has finaly turned. It's highly likely that Ofcom, our new television regulator, will suggest in its new draft guidelines that that R18 content be permitted on UK adult subscription Television sometime *this month* with the regulations set to change early next year.

Such a change would increase the availability of explicit adult content by a hundred fold. With so much hardcore content available to so many people the idea that explicit adult pornography is harmful will take a serious knock and the restrictive practices of the past will become increasingly untenable. Whilst there is still a long way to go and much fighting ahead, this year should at least see the death of the dogma that explicit pornography can?t be shown on television in the UK.

News of developments on this issue is regularly posted at www.ofwatch.org.uk. Those people who are interested in freeing this country from draconian censorship might also be interested in taking part in Ofcom?s imminent public consultation over broadcasting standards. Emailadmin@ofwatch.org.uk for details if you would like to take part.

You are asking the impossible. i.e, politicians admitting they are wrong.
We all know the figures - 75% approx of the internet access is because of porn. This is the age of global info etc etc. but the figures speak for themselves.

Yes, what is pornography? According to my dictionary, it is material designed to sexually arouse! So are many publications sold under the guise of "news"papers and many many lower shelf magazines, even those directly targeted at pre-teens.

The VRA was conceived - as most Acts -in good faith, however misguided. However, its bastard off-spring, the BBFC is a very evil entity, seemingly devoted to lining its own pockets and those who own licensed sex shops.

This monopoly(s) are extant because "The Public" have absolutely no say in the matter of legislation or its alteration.

History shows that it takes massive retaliation on the part of Joe Public to alter bad legislation, whether the Volstead Act in the US or various corporate Acts in the UK -such as the Jarrow marchers and the Suffragettes.

Paul says that the new OFCOM guidelines will relax laws. This is merely the might of TV companies imposing their wishes on money-hungry politicos. HOWEVER, Joe Bloggs-porn producer-has no such clout.

Marcus, I'm sure that TV companies exert a good deal more influence than they should when it comes to the regulation of television, but there are also other reasons why change will happen.

Ofcom must be only too aware of the pace of technological change and its likely effects. The status quo is not really an option. If the current increases in disk storage capacity and bandwidth availability continue for perhaps just 5 more years what will happen to television? It's already possible to stream video on demand across the internet, in 5 years time we could be looking at a whole new broadcasting landscape.

The old school of thought involving censorship of content considered to be unacceptable by those in charge simply won't work in the internet age. Ofcom ultimately must give in gracefully to the new way of things or make complete fools of themselves and I think they know that.

The VRA 1984 was devised by the Thatcher regime to replace the Obscene Publications 1984 because jurys were often acquitting even producers of hardcore porn.

The Private Members Bill (Graham Bright) was brought in by the backdoor and without being debated by parliament after a massive amount of publicity against Video nasties.

Why don't you set up a pirate TV station and show porn in the UK?