What’s Girls Aloud rights?

Darryn Walker, 35 has been cleared of breaching the Obscene Publications Act.  After he wrote a ‘murder’ blog imagining the violent death of pop group Girls Aloud.

The five stars, Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Kimberley Walsh and Nicole Roberts were unsuccessful in this court battle.

If the prosecution case against Walker’s fantasy pornographic blog had been successful, it would have been a landmark case.

Walker was charged under the Obscene Publications Act which has not been updated since 1959, stated in UK Statute Law.

The Act makes it illegal to publish material that “tends to deprave and corrupt” those individuals reading it.

This means that if the prosecution wants to be successful, the material in question would need to prove the above.  However this depends on the audience.

Classifying ‘obscene’

Walker’s defence had argued the piece was not easily accessible to readers.  Unless there was a specific internet search for it.

Obscenity laws are rarely used for internet content.  It has mainly been used against obscene images and there have been many cases of this.

The Obscene Publications Act 1960 was famously used against the publishers, Penguin books.  After it published sexually explicit novel, Lady Chatterleys’s Lover.

It had been banned since 1928, according to Penguin.  But once the ban was lifted it came into circulation again.

However, the Act has been successfully used in 1971 against satirical magazine, Oz after a cartoon of Rupert Bear having sex was published.

The publishers were convicted to 15 months imprisonment. Nevertheless the decision was overturned on appeal, according to Art and Popular Culture.com.

Human Rights Act

But does Mr. Walker have a right to write this controversial blog?  Despite it being written in a sexually violent tone.

Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights is the fundamental right to freedom of expression.  It has taken effect in the UK since the Human Rights Act was passed in 1998.

Although freedom of speech is a basic human right, Article 2 of the same act declares fundamental right to life.  But Article 3 right to freedom of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The ECHR states it must protect, “public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for protection of health or moral, reputation or rights of others.”

Defence counsel, Tim Owen QC told Newcastle Crown Court what Mr. Walker had produced was “widely available in an unregulated and uncensored form.”

Although Walker was not prosecuted, other landmark cases show there is a fine line between what is obscene and human rights.

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