Extreme Pornography and a Barrister Defendant

You have got to hand it to the CPS. It has become known on Twitter as the ‘Porntrial’ but after a week long trial at Kingston Crown Court, 50 years old barrister Simon Walsh was acquitted by the jury. The sexual acts found in his emails involved consenting adults and were legal. However, in their wisdom the CPS decided to prosecute under section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. This forbids possession of extreme pornography depicting acts which cause serious harm to the anus, breast or genitals. This was said to include personal proclivities such as “fisting.”  HS&Co believe that the Crown should not have prosecuted and that this whole area of law needs root and branch reforms. It is a modern development to entrust the CPS to use discretion not to prosecute in these predominantly private affairs.