Andrew Holland, the Wrexham man who was famously prosecuted for possessing a clip of a woman having sex with a man in a tiger costume, has challenged Section 63 of the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, popularly known as the Extreme Pornography Act. In a letter to the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, Holland’s solicitors have claimed that even five years after its enactment, the law is so unclear and poorly understood – including by police, prosecutors and solicitors – that it too easily traps the innocent. Assisted by a specialist legal team and advised by the sexual freedom campaigning group Backlash, the former defendant has called on CPS head Allison Saunders to review the implementation of Section 63; if no such review is forthcoming, the law will be challenged via judicial review.
Holland’s case illustrates the damage that can be caused by this poorly understood law. He was an ordinary man who loved jokes, the more outlandish the better. He had received the tiger clip, and another six second clip depicting simulated damage to a man’s genitals, as laddish jokes from friends. The friend had shared the clips as part of a braggart, bravado-tinged culture where online buddies swap videos intended to shock. “Unfortunately one of my friends sent me a load of jokes…some of them were hilarious, but unfortunately there were two on there that were classed as obscene,” says Holland.
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