Thought Crimes: Middlesbrough Man Sentenced For Possessing Dirty Cartoons
In this May 27, 2008 file photo, a visitor to the Tokyo International Anime Fair looks at cartoon figures on display in Tokyo. Japan’s parliament has passed a law which bans possession of child pornography, but excludes sexually explicit depictions of children in comics, animation and computer graphics. The upper house voted Wednesday, June 18, 2014 to approve the law, which was passed by the lower house earlier this month. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara, File)
ROBUL Hoque, 39, stands in the dock at Teeside Crown Crout. He’s accused of 10 counts of possessing prohibited images of children. It’s a typical case of depravity, right? Wrong.
His barrister Richard Bennett explains:
“These are not what would be termed as paedophilic images. These are cartoons.”
Mr Hoque has been arrested and charged for posssessing cartoons. Police raided his home in Middlesbrough. They found 288 still and 99 moving cartoons.
In 2009, Glenn Phillip McGuire pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography, specifically naked characters from The Simpsons and Pokemon performing sex acts on each other. Mr McGuire admitted at Australia’s Newcastle Local Court to having six such images on his computer.
Mr McGuire did not create the images, but downloaded them while surfing the Limewire website. He dowloaded the images, which is, apparently, not the same as walking into bookshop and looking at such images in Manga comic books, or dowloading them from a shelf. Call the thought police. Emergency!
Mr McGuire was convicted, fined $1000 and placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond.
In Australia a “person” includes cartoon characters.
As Justice Adams ruled in a similar case:
“The alleged pornography comprised a series of cartoons depicting figures modelled on members of the television animated series The Simpsons. The male figures have genitalia which is evidently human, as do the mother and the girl. The mere fact that the figure depicted departed from a realistic representation in some respects of a human being did not mean that such a figure was not a ‘person’.”
Back in Teeside, McGuire’s defence barrister Mark Preece is pleading:
“It’s the sort of spam email garbage that is disseminated all around this country every day. The images are at the extreme lowest end of the scale. He’s extremely embarrassed about the nature of the charge. To say that this is a very unfortunate matter is probably a gross understatement.”
Mr Bennett continues:
“This case should serve as a warning to every Manga and Anime fan to be careful. It seems there are many thousands of people in this country, if they are less then careful, who may find themselves in that position too.”
The Gazette adds:
They were classified as prohibited images as they depicted young girls, some in school uniforms, some exposing themselves or taking part in sexual activity… [Judge Tony Briggs] added: “The expert was able to see that the defendant had been actively searching for this material on the internet”… Six years ago he was prosecuted for having “Tomb Raider-style” computer-generated pictures of fictional children. They were so realistic, a jury convicted him on six counts of making “indecent pseudo-photographs” of children, which he had denied. That too was the first case of its kind in the country.
The judge also noted:
“They are clearly all images designed to make people think they are of children. They are fictitious images in the sense that in no part of them does any real person appear. It is important to emphasise that there were no actual children or perpetrators involved. I have to tell you that if there had been, an immediate prison sentence measured in years might have been appropriate. You are an intelligent man. You certainly should have been aware of the risk of indulging in accessing this material, and you acknowledge your foolishness and guilt…
“This is material that clearly society and the public can well do without. Its danger is that it obviously portrays sexual activity with children, and the more it’s portrayed, the more the ill-disposed may think it’s acceptable.”
Most sane people would not be that interested in collecting such images, finding them creepy. But in what sane world are they illegal? Mr Hoque is guilty of a thought crime. The judge told him he “crossed the line as to what is illegal” and those pictures could be “a door into a very murky and distasteful world”.
They are gateway cartoons, portals to depravity against actual human beings. Maybe. Maybe not.
He was given a community order and completed a sex offender treatment programme after the 2008 conviction.
How do you treat a sex offender who enjoys drawings? Hand him an eraser? But, then, the images have been downloaded onto his mind, a crime that used to be termed ‘looking’.
Mr Hoque has been sentenced to a nine-month prison sentence suspended for two years.
More illegal comic book porn:
Nightmare On Fleet Street: Action And Battle In The Comic Books
Flashback: Norman Saunders S&M Bazooka Porn And Battle Cards
Posted: 22nd, October 2014 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
