Believe it or not, the headline in the link above is the actual headline that appears in the article that this posting is about.
Believe it or not, the article appears in a UK publication.
Believe it or not, the publication in question describes itself as "the only specialist courts and tribunals agency operating within the UK. - we have been supplying the national, regional and local press for more than 20 years and have built a hard fought reputation as one of the country's best news agencies"
If indeed they supply the nationals and locals, no wonder it is so hard to change the language that the UK media use!
Unfortunately, having spotted this disgusting headline, and pointed out the offense that this causes , Court News UK seem not able to grasp that images of "one-year-old babies being sexually abused" (from the article) are not pornography.
Their argument to me, was that they were merely quoting the dictionary definition, namely
"Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity' (involving babies)".
Really? I have never seen this in any dictionary I have seen.
Surely a publication that reports on court cases in the UK would (or should) know that the correct legal definition is "Indecent Photographs of Children" (UK Sexual Offences Act 2003)?
Surely a publication like "Court news UK" would (or should) realise the offense, the trivialisation, the paedo-friendly language that "porn" implies to when referring to images of children (and babies) being sexually abused?
Apparently not.
Am I to think that, by their reasoning, they would refer to black people using the "n****r" term, as this also appears in the dictionary? Would they refer to gypsies as "p*k*ys" as that too is in the dictionary?
Would they be happy, if hypothetically one of them had a young child, that was raped, abused, and filmed, seeing this being reported in the media as "pornography"? Looking through their site, there does seem to be a large amount of stories, all using the "child porn" or "baby porn" headlines, so maybe being offensive to victims of this dreadful crime means nothing to them?
So Court News UK, you take the honours of being my first Name and Shame
If you have any comment to make, please feel free to comment (anonymously if you wish).
Yup, it's hard to get your head around some of the terminology used. The one that always gets me is "making indecent images of children". Now, if you are actually "making indecent images of children" then there cannot have been the image to start with, so therefore you must have created it, therefore you must have had the child there in front of you!
ReplyDeletewhat constitutes "making" an indecent photograph was decided in R. v. Bowden [2000] QB. They said that the Law is "not only concerned with the original creation of images, but also their proliferation. Photographs or pseudo-photgraphs found on the internet may have originated from outside the UK; to download or print them within the jurisdiction IS TO CREATE NEW MATERIAL which hitherto may not have existed therein"
DeleteNearly all the charges brought of "making" is where photos have been downloaded thus "making" a new copy.
Some people posting on message boards seem to think that the charge "making" must mean they had a child in front of them."Making" the original is, of course, serious direct abuse with life long consequences for the victim and should be seen as even more serious than downloading existing pictures; calling them both "making" might be misleading.
The Law refers to "take or permit to be taken, or to make, any indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child"
Making really covers the copying and proliferation rather than the original "taking"
Thank you for the explanation Anon,
DeleteAgreed, the language used is disgusting, which is why I thought I'd start this last month.
ReplyDeleteWhy the hell would any normal person call an image or film of child sexual abuse "porn"?
Why would anyone normal call a child pimped out to paedophiles a "prostitute"?
Why would anyone legitimise anything sexual between an adult and a child by calling it an "affair" (or other things like "romps)?
All these terms, and others, serve to trivialise and undermine these crimes, semi-legitimise them (in the written word), and offend victims.
Why can most people not see this?
It's an age old established ploy Richard, the lawyers have been using it for Millennia, it's called Legalese.
DeleteBecause the people have been dumbed down for the last 3 or 4 generations they have lost the ability of critical thinking, that one attribute which can decipher truth and deception from the lies.