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Man to appear in court over Girls Aloud 'murder blog'
Justin Davenport, Crime Correspondent02.10.08
A civil servant is being prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act for a blog in which he allegedly details the kidnap and murder of Girls Aloud.
The case of Darryn Walker, 35, is being seen as one of the most significant on censorship since Lady Chatterley's Lover.
It is one of the first involving the written word in recent years and is expected to be the first test of the law since pornographic material became widely available on the internet.
Walker is accused of posting the article on a fantasy porn website. It allegedly described in detail the kidnap, mutilation, rape and murder of Girls Aloud members Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. Headlined "Girls (Scream) Aloud" it is said to have run to 12 pages.
The website has a foreign host but prosecution is possible because the alleged author was identifiable as a British citizen living in the UK.
The Internet Watch Foundation, which polices obscene material, was alerted to the article last year. A case was then brought by Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Unit after consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service. Most inquiries under obscenity laws have involved pornographic images in magazines or on DVDs.
In the coming weeks Walker, of South Shields, is due to appear at Newcastle crown court charged with publication of an obscene article. He has already appeared before magistrates, where he was granted unconditional bail.
The 1959 Obscene Publications Act makes it illegal to publish material that tends to deprave and corrupt those reading or viewing it.
The most celebrated case was the 1960 prosecution of Penguin Books over DH Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.
During the Old Bailey trial prosecuting barrister Mervyn Griffith-Jones asked: "Is it a book that you would have lying around your own house? Is it a book that you would wish your wife or your servants to read?"
The jury found Penguin not guilty and within a year the novel had sold more than two million copies.
Since then notable prosecutions have included the 1976 case against the publishers of Inside Linda Lovelace. They were acquitted, leading the Metropolitan-Police to review its policy of prosecuting books under the Act, on the grounds that if the porn star's autobiography was not obscene, then nothing was.
Girls Aloud hit the big time in 2002 after winning ITV's Popstars: The Rivals. They reached Number One in the charts with their debut single Sound Of The Underground and have had 18 consecutive Top 10 singles - a record.
Reader views (6)
I forgot to mention - the Richard Ayoade article with nun chainsaw video comments is in today's on line Guardian!
- Sarah Bradshaw, Enfield, Middx
sounds pretty smart to me, girls aloud give me a headache anyway!!!
- Nick Bacon, london, uk
Why would anyone want to harm Girls Aloud? Surely everyone knows they are a group of young ladies trained in classical music masquerading as a bunch of bimbos to sell records?
- Tom, Watford UK
Surely this is no different to the suspected terrorists that used the excuse that they were just 'acting out fantasies'on their internet page. They got released.
But where do you draw the line ?
- Big Andy, London
This is from an interview of Richard Ayoade (actor in the IT Crowd): Apart from Dinosaur Jr and Kings of Leon, he would most like to direct "a nunsploitation" for Girls Aloud "with them as nuns but in a horror setting. The nun chainsaw video. But I'm sure that's probably not a direction they are going in," he says. Maybe he should go to court to for having naughty thoughts? Maybe he's in league with Darryn Walker? I think someone should be told! No, actually, I think the censorship should stop NOW! This is England for goodness sake!!!
- Sarah Bradshaw, Enfield, Middx
Did he produce it in triplicate?
- Anon, -
