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.