Perverting the Course of Justice by Deleting Indecent Images
| DOI | 10.1350/1740-5580-76.1.10 |
| Published date | 01 February 2012 |
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Court of Appeal |
Article 36(1), but merely give effect to it when read in conjunction with
the definitions in the EU Regulation (at [41]).
Given that the Court of Appeal was persuaded, on the plain words of
Article 36, that the judge was correct to reject the defence submissions,
there was no need to resort to the legislative purpose (at [32]). Despite
this, the court confirmed that had it needed to, the teleological approach
would have been utilised to ensure that the predominant purpose of
environmental protection was advanced. Interestingly, the court also
noted in its discussion on legislative purpose that in reality, if the defence
case were correct, avoidance of the Article 36 prohibition would be
facilitated, and its enforcement, either by prosecution or interception of
the cargo, virtually impossible, certainly if the breach occurred only at
the point that the waste actually leaves the Community (at [32]). In
considering the practical issues of enforcement, the Court of Appeal has
given an indication of just how far it is willing to take the teleological
approach to ensure that the objective of EU law—in this case environ-
mental protection—is achieved.
Laura Madhloom
Perverting the Course of Justice by Deleting Indecent
Images
Rv T [2011] EWCA Crim 729
Keywords Perverting the course of justice; Acts tending to pervert the
course of justice; Deleting computer files; Indecent photographs of
children
The appellant T was married to a man who had, in 2003, been convicted
of downloading indecent photographs of children from the internet and
who had been imprisoned and was required to comply with the sex
offender notification requirements. In 2008 the daughter of T was doing
homework when she required a memory stick that she could use to
transfer a file from her laptop to the main family computer so that work
could be printed. T told her to look in a drawer and the daughter found
a stick which she plugged in. She said that she saw a variety of titles on
the stick that suggested that they were videos of child pornography. The
child stated she told T of this who became ‘tight-lipped’ and then deleted
the files from the stick.
Soon afterwards the child told a teacher at school what she had seen
and the police were informed. They searched the house and recovered a
number of indecent photographs of children. The memory stick in
question was forensically examined and it was found that there had
been three child pornography titles on the stick, each with distressing
titles that described what was depicted.
T was arrested and interviewed. She admitted that she was aware of
her husband’s earlier conviction and the fact that he was subject to the
The Journal of Criminal Law
10
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