Coroners and Justice (Amendment)

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 so as to apply additionally to the possession of pornographic written material about children; to make consequential amendments to the Act; and for connected purposes.

Section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 is entitled “Possession of prohibited images of children”. The prohibited images in question are obviously pornographic. They may be in various forms—photographs, pseudo-photographs, cartoons, computer generated images and so on. They may be moving or still. The link between the possession and viewing of such images and actual action taken against children is generally accepted.

The ludicrous situation is that an individual will be liable for prosecution for possession of photographs, pseudo-photographs, computer generated images or cartoons of graphic child sex abuse, but cannot be prosecuted for written words describing child sex abuse in pornographic and often lurid detail. All such things, including the written word in this form, are designed for sexual stimulation resulting from the sexual abuse of children. An individual could write from his or her imagination a graphic description of child sexual abuse, which could be more emotive and more graphic than any picture of any form, but they could not be prosecuted.

For many, the written word is more powerful; I shall give a simple example, which the police have given me. A gentleman from Kent wrote describing his wish to kidnap an early-teenage girl, strip her naked, sexually abuse her and then in an appalling way, which I will not detail, murder her. Horrifically, having written and stimulated his imagination, he did exactly that. Fortunately, he has been caught and is in prison—hopefully, for a very long time. However, the teenager is dead. In theory, the police could have found those writings, but if they had they could have done nothing about them because they would not have been illegal. I understand that the distribution of such stuff is illegal, but its possession is not.

Some years ago, I went through one of the early parliamentary police programmes with the London Metropolitan police; I highly recommend the course. I spent one of the days with the Metropolitan police paedophile unit. I was shocked; I could not believe that people could do such appalling things to children, including babies. I found the police estimate of the number of active paedophiles in the UK way beyond any level I could have imagined and I was stunned at the estimate that approximately 20% of them were female.

Following the course, I had a meeting with the full Metropolitan police team and it was apparent that some major and some minor legal changes were required. I became a member of the then Home Office taskforce which led to the introduction of parts of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 relating to child sex abuse. The Act introduced the offence of child grooming. At that time we led the world in such legislation. Additionally, either on my own or with others, and with the co-operation of the Government of the day, I have helped to introduce about a dozen changes in this area. As a Home Office Minister, the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) was particularly sympathetic and helpful. That explains why he is my only backer, although I would expect considerable support throughout the House.

This small Bill would close a loophole—an anomaly. Last year the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre published a research document on paedophile cases. The report mentions, but almost as a sideline, that some offenders possess graphic notes or writings on child abuse for their own benefit. I have been shown some examples of these by then Detective Chief Inspector David Marshall, who was head of the Metropolitan police paedophile unit. He is an expert in this area and has drawn this loophole to my attention. Following that, I have had the support of the current head of the Metropolitan police paedophile unit and of CEOP. They have seen volumes of this material, but they have seen it coincidentally, while looking through material for illegal child abuse photographs or images. As possession of such written material is not illegal, the officers generally disregarded it because they were looking only for images.

In referring to child abuse I am not referring to writings such as “Lolita”, and the Bill would make that quite clear. The written material that I am targeting is absolutely vile. It can be as shocking as images described as level 5 based on the classification used by the courts. Section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act, in referring to prohibited images, describes it as

“pornographic…grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise…obscene”

and

“of such a nature that it must be reasonably assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.”

This could apply to the written-word material that I am targeting. The distribution of such material is prohibited but its possession is not. It has been expressed to me that such a change would contravene EU legislation. I understand, however, that a number of our EU partner countries have such legislation now. If it works for them, it could and should work for us.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Sir Paul Beresford and Paul Goggins present the Bill.

Sir Paul Beresford accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 October and to be printed (Bill 107).

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has tabled a motion for debate on a matter of privilege which I have agreed should take precedence today.