A ridiculous and malicious trail involving 'extreme pornography' resulted in acquittal by jury this week in England.

Kevin Webster had been charged under the cynically vague Extreme Porn laws that were introduced a year ago. His crime? To have downloaded staged images featuring models from Drop Dead Gorgeous on the Necrobabes site. The prosecution accepted that the images did not show real violence or harm, but prosecutor Darron Whitehead told the jury "The question is whether it is realistic or portrayed in that way. You have to be satisfied the people in those images are real. Plainly they are. The intentions of the persons within those images, the actors and actresses, are irrelevant. It is what is depicted in those images which is material."

He added, "Why is there a need for this new legislation? There is a need to regulate images portraying sexual violence, to safeguard the decency of society and for the protection of women."

The decency of society? How this was under threat from a man downloading a couple of photos to his hard drive is hard to fathom.

The defence were supported by campaigning group Backlash, and called expert witnesses professor Feona Attwood of Sheffield Hallam University and Dr Clarissa Smith of the University of Sunderland, who have written a study of the law. Attwood compared the images - a knifing and a drowning - as similar to a 1970's Hammer Horror film (of course, thanks to the wording of the law, a still from a Hammer film could well be classed as 'extreme porn' if a jury could be convinced that the person possessing it gained sexual pleasure from it!).

The jury thankfully understood the difference between fantasy and reality, and brought in a 'not guilty' verdict. It would be nice to think that this verdict - the first time the law has been tested before a jury - might make the powers that be think again about this unnecessary and repressive law, or at least restrict its use to cases of genuine abuse and torture. But that, I fear, if wishful thinking...