Executive deaf to call for internet porn study

URGENT calls for a renewed study into links between on-line pornography and violent crime were dismissed by the Scottish Executive last night, a day after the conviction of an internet-obsessed Scot for murder.

Graham Coutts, 35, from Leven, in Fife, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday after a jury heard how his growing obsession with macabre internet sites had led him to murder Jane Longhurst, a Sussex teacher.

In the wake of his sentence, his victim’s family called for an immediate review of the law that allows the public unlimited access to websites detailing the torture of women and children.

Last night, the Scottish Executive said it had no intention of re-assessing the issue of lurid websites and their links to violent crime.

An Executive spokeswoman told The Scotsman it was unlikely a further study into the issue would be commissioned, as there was no evidence to justify it. She said: "We share public’s concerns about the effects of pornography on society. That’s why we commissioned a review to decide whether further research into this area was required. This review analysed the available evidence to see whether a link could be proven between the consumption of pornography and sexual violence.

"The review was inconclusive, and for every study that purports to show a ‘harmful’ effect, there is another study that contradicts these findings. In summary, the causal link between pornography and violent behaviour has not yet been proven." She added: "In light of these findings, we have taken the decision that it would not be beneficial to commission further research at this stage. That should in no way be seen as us downgrading pornography."

Coutts, an unemployed musician, strangled and raped his victim after years of obsession with internet sites showing necrophilia and women being raped and hanged. The jury heard that he strangled Ms Longhurst while fulfilling his internet-fuelled obsession with asphyxial sex.

Moments after Coutts was sentenced, Liz Longhurst, the victim’s mother, called for an urgent review of the law on the issue of websites and vowed to lobby Westminster MPs to ban the sites from the web.

Last night, Margaret Mitchell, the Scottish Tories’ deputy justice spokeswoman, claimed the law regarding the exploitation of women and children on websites and the wider issue of child grooming had to be firmer and more clear cut. She said: "Psychologists would have it both ways on the issue of internet obscenity and links to crime, but as a society we have a duty to protect the vulnerable and the young, in particular, from both obscene websites and the use of the internet by paedophiles. We are simply not doing enough to crack down on this issue."

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which helps in policing the net, claimed it had examined some of the sites Coutts had logged on to and concluded they could be caught by the Obscene Publications Act 1959. However, as the sites are hosted by service providers overseas, the UK authorities have no power to act.

The IWF also revealed that such content was more difficult to combat than images of child abuse, because there was less of an international consensus about its unacceptability, as there was universal disagreement over the link between pornography and violent sexual crime.

However, hundreds of murderers worldwide, including the American serial sexual murderer Ted Bundy, who was executed in 1989, have revealed addictions to increasingly explicit images of violence.

Dr Dolf Zillmann and Dr Jennings Bryant, of the University of Alabama, recently published a study showing that pornography can diminish a person’s sexual happiness, and that it damages an individual’s attitude towards sexuality and towards women, and desensitises people to rape as a criminal offence. A US survey last year also showed that more than 200,000 people were effectively addicted to porn through websites and associated chatrooms.