When the high profile obscenity trial involving ‘Sleazy’ Michael Peacock ended in acquittal, there were those who thought that it would lead to an inevitable shake-up of censorship restrictions in the UK. After all, a jury declared him not guilty, despite the fact that he was selling DVDs featuring fisting and pissing – two of the acts that the BBFC have continually claimed are still illegal under British law, their justification for such claims being that such content is still being found obscene by juries in court. The Peacock case – the first in many years to be contested in front of a jury – showed that to be untrue.

But those of us with long memories knew that things wouldn’t be so simple. There has been a long-standing tradition with British obscenity law that while a single conviction somehow sets a precedent (as we’ve recently seen with the case of the man convicted of sending ‘obscene’ text messages to a single, willing recipient, - something long thought beyond the scope of the law), a thousand acquittals make no difference. If they did, then hardcore porn would’ve been considered legal in the mid-Seventies, when juries were exonerating John Lindsay.

And as suspected, the BBFC and the Crown Prosecution Service advice that they conveniently hide behind didn’t change – films are still cut for watersports and fisting, quoting the same law that was exposed as superfluous in the Peacock case. But perhaps realising that getting a jury to convict on obscenity charges for such material was proving impossible, the CPS have now changed direction. For the last week, Simon Walsh has been on trial for much the same ‘offences’, but this time charged under the notorious ‘extreme porn’ law - s63 of the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, which makes it illegal to merely possess pornographic material showing "an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals." According to the judge in this case, 'serious injury' could include 'physical, mental or moral harm'. Talk about covering all bases. Under the terms of this outrageous law – one of New Labour’s more disgraceful pieces of legislation – the images don’t even need to be real – just ‘realistic’, and there is no awkwardly vague suggestion that the material has to ‘deprave or corrupt’ – just tick a few boxes in terms of content. When the law was going through Parliament, critics were assured that it would only be used in the most ‘extreme’ (no pun intended) of cases, with an estimate of around 30 cases a year. In fact, in the few years that the law has been in force, there have been thousands of prosecutions. No one should be surprised about this – give the police a new law, especially one that removes the pesky defences available under older laws, and they will use it enthusiastically. And in this case, it gives the CPS a second bite at the cherry. We have to assume that if they thought fisting (and the BDSM material) on trial in the Peacock case fell under this law, then they might have prosecuted him under it, rather than the less cut and dried OPA. But after his acquittal, it would seem a rethink was in order, and rather than accept that such material is not considered particularly outré by most people, they would instead try to rebrand it as a dangerous act, liable to result in serious injury – or even death.

And so it has been with the Walsh trial, where the prosecution have trotted out a series of half-truths, outright lies and outrageous slanders. In a country where Fifty Shades of Grey is now the best selling novel of all time, the prosecution were trying to shock a jury with stories of BDSM extremity.

Walsh faced several charges of possessing extreme pornography. One involved photos of a urethral sound, a medical object that is inserted into the tip of the penis to expand the urethra, here being used for sexual purposes. Another count was for a cock ring around the testicles (seriously). Other photos showed a man’s hand inserted into another man’s anus. There is also the charge of possessing an ‘indecent image’ because the police couldn’t confirm the age of the participant (and, thanks to another New Labour law, while the age on consent in the UK is sixteen, it is illegal to possess erotic images of anyone under eighteen) and so decided he was 14. A further charge, relating to a photo of someone wearing a gasmask, was dropped – presumably even the CPS realised how utterly ludicrous that was.

Perhaps realising how weak their case was, the prosecution continually muddied the waters with related by legally irrelevant information. As well as suggesting that the material was ‘dehumanising’ and ‘degrading’ (which it may or may not be – there are currently no laws against either), they also revealed that the defendant was a member of ‘Nasty Kinky Pigs’, a social network for gay men into BDSM - and again, not illegal. And a fantasy story found on the defendant’s computer, discussing the ‘hanging’ of a twenty-something male, was also read to the jury. Again, the story is not illegal, but all this accumulated ‘evidence’ was clearly designed to influence the jury, who should only be concerned with the content of the images and their background. What the defendant is or isn’t into should hardly be relevant, especially as he has conceded to being a gay man with an interest in BDSM, who has experienced fisting in his private life and who took the photos of the sounds. None of the acts depicted are illegal to perform.

More outrageous was the prosecution’s suggestion that sexual health clinics are only visited by people who engage in ‘risky’ sex. An outrageous insult to the clinics, their customers and everyone trying to encourage the public to take sexual health seriously. This deserves to be up there with the infamous Lady Chatterley's Lover trial’s quote about letting your wife or servant read the book.

In fact, as the evidence was revealed, the case became even more surreal. It turns out that none of this material was found on Walsh’s computer. Rather, the sounding and fisting images were in a 'sent' folder on an online email account, and the 'indecent' image was an attachment on an email sent to Walsh’s Hotmail account. Thanks to police fumbling in the investigation, it was unclear if Walsh had even opened the attachment. Even if he had, it was possible – in fact probable – that these were unsolicited images that he had simply not bothered to delete from his Hotmail account. Do you delete all your Hotmail messages? One would imagine that if he was interested in the photos, he would’ve downloaded them, rather than leave them buried away and forgotten (the email was sent three years ago). And let's not forget that there was no evidence that the person in the photograph was 14 - that was simply a police guess.

Why the police were investigating Walsh in the first place is unclear, beyond a suspicion that he had viewed indecent images of children - for which no evidence was found. It certainly won’t have anything to do with the fact that he was a barrister and alderman of the City of London who had investigated police corruption – we all know that the British police are happy to see bad eggs in their force exposed and that they never, ever engage in malicious harassment.

However, no matter what the motivation for the investigation and the subsequent prosecution, it ultimately failed. Simon Walsh was acquitted of all six charges at just after 2pm today, the jury unanimous after deliberating for a couple of hours.

The result is not a huge surprise, though a welcome relief. Apart from the fact that this brazen attempt to expand the boundaries of the notorious law was ridiculous and transparent, it’s notable that when charges under the law have been defended, juries have proved as reluctant to convict as they have been with the OPA. Unfortunately, most people have tended to plead guilty (often having had inexpert legal advice) and so the powers that be can claim it is working, rather than admit that it is an affront to free expression.

Still, the CPS should now take a deep breath and perhaps admit that its own moral line in the sand is no longer relevant. A quick call to the BBFC giving new guidance would be a start. The Director of Public Prosecutions' overdue resignantion would be welcome too. I won’t hold my breath though.

These prosecutions – and the law that allows them to happen – are a disgrace. Let’s be honest – the misinformation, the moral outrage, the hysteria, the claims to be protecting people from their own deviant urges, the claims of sexual perversion that is a threat to decent society… these are exactly the same slanders that used to be spread about the LGBT community. Now, while authorities fall over each other to prove their gay-friendliness, it seems that other sexual minorities – minorities that only involve consenting adults – are still fair game for persecution (yes, I'm aware that both these recent cases involve gay men; but plenty of straight people have fallen foul of both these laws). Add this to the ongoing British obsession with holding back the barrage of filth that makes continental Europe such a deeply uncivilised and violent place (unlike our green, pleasant, tolerant and crime-free land) and you end up with a situation where lives are ruined, careers destroyed, relationships wrecked – all over images of adults enjoying themselves while performing perfectly legal activities. This needs to stop..

(Thanks to Myles Jackmanand Alex Dymock for their live tweeting of the trial)