Cause for Extreme Concern
Thanks to Inquisition 21st Century
I can now confirm that the list of material does in fact originate from Customs. However a few background pointers do give credence to the possibility that it can be included in any legislation that the Home Office will draw up.
It seems that Customs were assigned the job of drawing up a list as they are considered as experts in this area. They clearly would like to see its inclusion as it would provide 'clarity' for material to seize.
A worrying interpretation is that the Home Office have been banging on about inconsistency and a gap in the law.
At the moment Customs may seize material on the list if found imported in the physical form of a DVD or magazine. The Obscene Publications Act can be used to prohibit any trade of similar material within the country and also of UK website content. However there is currently no law against downloading the same material from overseas sites via the internet. In fact if Customs somehow intercepted a download of say a fisting video then they could nothing about it legally. Furthermore, this legal downloading could even be used to challenge and undermine the seizure of physical material. A seizure victim could ask how can this fisting DVD be considered obscene when the same movie is legal when streamed to your PC.
In fact the original premise of discussions in Parliamentary committee was how to ban the importation of this material from overseas. If the Home Office want to bring enforcement into line with what customs are seizing at present through the mail, the only way they can do it was to ban the ownership and frighten people into not downloading it. The Home Office spin has been to continually emphasise the link between the enforcement of violent porn prohibition with that of strong approach to child porn. Perhaps this is a deliberate addition to the climate of fear angle.
Having thought about the Government's perceived need to maintain controls on merely obscene material such as fisting, I am now convinced, that one way or another, HM Custom's list will somehow find its way into any legislation that results from the current consultation.
Definitely Cause for Extreme Concern.
I wonder if during the consultation there will be respondents that magically conjure up suggestions, similar to Customs, ie that the list should be extended to cover obscene material. The Government could then say that they are merely responding to suggestions. Perhaps they could even say that they have found a compromise half way to John Beyer's wish for concentration camp Britain.