R V Bowden - Judgment

Judgment

It was accepted in the Bowden case that s.1(1)(a) of the 1978 Act covered those making pseudo-photographs who may have had no contact with the subjects of the images. But it also covered those making copies of photographs by knowingly copying the photograph.

The wording in s.1 of the 1978 Act as amended was clear and unambiguous. The words "to make" had to be given their natural and ordinary meaning, and in the instant context that was "to cause to exist; to produce by action, to bring about".

In R v. Fellows; R v. Arnold (1997) 1 CAR 244, the Court of Appeal had held that a computer file containing data that represented the original photograph in another form was "a copy of a photograph" as per section 7(2) of the 1978 Act.

Therefore, downloading an indecent photograph from the Internet was "making a copy of an indecent photograph" since a copy of that photograph had been caused to exist on the computer to which it had been downloaded.

Read more about this topic:  R V Bowden

Famous quotes containing the word judgment:

    In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.
    Socrates (469–399 B.C.)

    At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgment of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion whatever, has a conception of Pyrrhonism.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)