Petition to Amend s63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act

You can view and sign my petition right now by clicking here!

My earlier explanatory note for this petition mysteriously disappeared from TheThirdRepublic, so I'm going to replace it with this shorter, holding, note.

Basically, the Government has recently brought into force a law that is badly written and could be used by the police to criminalise consenting adults for looking at other consenting adults doing things that are perfectly legal! For example, the legislation specifically criminalises the viewing of parts of mainstream Hollywood films outside of an approved context (careful with that remote!).

In short the Government has produced a 'thought crime', pure and simple. It came about because David Blunkett, the then Home Secretary, decided to adopt a piece of knee jerk populist legislation in response to a high profile murder. The legislation was pushed under the public radar by dishonest MPs lying to the media about what the law actually is; Martin Salter, the law's backbench champion, persists in claiming that the law is about 'snuff' movies (films of real people being killed) whereas the law is expressly about a much wider range of images where no one was actually injured and full consent is present (i.e. acting!).

Ironically, my proposed amendment would change the law so that it is actually consistent with the rhetoric of Martin Salter MP as it would change the law to ensure that this legislation can only be used to target people who actually seek out and collect images of real abuse - i.e. images of (a) real serious violence and / or (b) images where there really is no consent.

Similar amendments had been proposed by Baroness Miller in the House of Lords, but rejected out of hand by the Government, which was concerned that the need to prove real culpability could make it hard for them to convict people!

Make up your own mind on the evidence! You can view and sign my petition here.

You can find more information about why I oppose this law on the Backlash site here. You can also get involved in protecting the sexual freedoms of consenting adults through the Consenting Adult Action Network.