Originally Posted by Saracen 
Well, the problem is in interpretation.
For a start, as has been pointed out, there's nothing in there in relation to child porn ....
There is indeed reference to child pornography in the act, but it's s.67, rather than s.62 et seq., and it all still sits within the sub-heading 'Pornography etc'.
But secondly, so much in that legislation is wide open to interpretation, and the risk is that the courts won't interpret it as the legislators intend.
For instance, s6(2) requires it to be "grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character".
In whose judgement? And by what standards? Who decides .... a porn producer or a modern day Mary Whitehouse? A liberal '60s free-love advocate or a puritanical clergyman? Each of those are likely to have a very different standard about what is either grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise obscene.
Then, there's the sense of what s.7 means when it says ".... portrays, in an explicit and realistic way ..."
Okay, so if it "portrays" in a "realistic way" a given image, then it's clear that it does not refer to just photographs of actual acts that might fit the given criteria, but ones that simply portray it in a realistic way. It could all be mere play-acting. And if so, is it wrong?
OK, a little challenge for all reading. Redraft the legislation in such a way that it is guaranteed to be effective against all 'illegal' images (I'll let you imagine the limit of this for yourselves, but it needs to include some images), but does not affect any 'legal' images, including any which may be considered marginal cases, and cannot be interpreted otherwise.
Suppose, for example, that in this day and age of gritty, realistic film making, a Hollywood producer makes a film of the style of Silence of the Lambs, but instead of it being about a serial killer, it's about a sexual predator. Would possession of a copy of that film be covered by the quoted sections of this act? It looks like it to me.
See s.63 'Exclusion of classified films, etc.'
But then, para 2 requires that the image be both "extreme" and "pornographic". Again, it begs the question, who defines "pornography"? A Mary Whitehouse fan?
No, a jury of 12 people, whose personal views should generally regulate the decision to a common definition.
If this legislation was about images that DID involve serious physical harm, that might be different ....though perhaps very hard to prove. But by opening it up to things that merely portray it, the scope widens.
But how can you prove it? Say a woman runs to the Police holding a video of her getting violently raped 12 months ago by the 'boyfriend' she has just escaped. There are no bruises on her body; her nose has clearly been broken in the past but is fine now; she walks with a slight limp. There's no evidence, other than her testimony, that the video is 'real'.