Drawings of sex abuse to be made illegal
All images of child sex abuse, including drawings and computer-generated images, are set to be made illegal following a Ministry of Justice consultation on the subject.
The proposals include a maximum three year jail term for those found guilty.
Child safety groups had been concerned paedophiles could circumvent current anti-abuse legislation by digitally manipulating abuse photographs.
Justice minister Maria Eagle said: “These new proposals will help close a loophole that we believe paedophiles are using to create images of child sexual abuse.
“This is not about criminalising art or pornographic cartoons more generally, but about targeting obscene, and often very realistic, images of child sexual abuse which have no place in our society.”
But legal experts and MPs have sounded a note of concern over the proposals.
Edward Garnier, a backbench Conservative MP, told politics.co.uk the new legislation would have to be precise if it was to be effective.
“One of the things you must have in criminal law is exactitude and certainty,” he said.
“Just passing aspirational laws doesn’t help. It gets people seduced by a false promise that cannot be delivered.
“If you’re going to have a new law covering what they perceive to be a gap in the law it has to be drafted in such a way that it fills the gap and doesn’t create another one,” he continued.
“If there is a genuine gap that needs to be filled, fill it. But fill it intelligently and fill it with a precise weapon.”
