Children

The Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955, passed in response to a flood of "horror comics" imported from the United States, creates specific offence relating to the importation and sale of comics likely to come into the hands of young people, depicting the commission or crime, acts of violence or cruelty, or incidents of a horrible nature, and tending to corrupt young people into whose hands they might fall. This was actually a remarkably successful piece of legislation, so that some fourteen years after its enactment a Minister of State was able to announce that no prosecutions had been necessary.

Section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978 makes it an offence to take, distribute, or possess with intent to distribute any indecent photograph or film depicting a child under 16, and s.160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 extends this to any possession of such a photograph irrespective of intent; the child need not personally be involved in any indecency, though the child's age may be relevant in deciding whether the photograph is in fact indecent.

R v Owen [1988] 1 WLR 134, CA

A professional photographer D took a photograph showing a 14-year-old girl scantily clad and with bare breasts; she intended to become a professional model and looked older than her actual age. D was charged under the 1978 Act, and the judge said he would direct the jury to take into account the girl's age in considering whether or not the photograph was indecent. D then changed his plea to guilty and appealed, but the judge's direction was upheld.

R v Graham-Kerr [1988] 1 WLR 1098, CA

D took a photograph of a seven-year-old boy at a naturist swimming pool and was charged under the 1978 Act. The judge allowed evidence to be given of D's motives, but the Court of Appeal quashed the resulting conviction, saying motive was irrelevant to the question whether the photograph was indecent. (N.B. Compare the law on indecent assault, where D's motives are relevant in ambiguous cases in deciding whether or not the assault was indecent.)

In November 1995, the TV newsreader Julia Somerville and her partner were investigated by police after a technician reported finding pictures of a naked child in a film sent for processing. The pictures were "family snaps" of their seven-year-old daughter in the bath, and the Crown Prosecution Service announced a month later that no further action would be taken.