Recent Judicial Decisions
| Date | 01 November 1962 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6203500607 |
| Published date | 01 November 1962 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Recent
Judicial
Decisions
POLICE
HELD
INCORRUPTIBLE
R. v. Clayton &Halsey
The effect
of
this ruling is that the police are incorruptible, at
least if they are members
of
the obscene publications department
at New Scotland Yard ([1962] 3 W.L.R. 815). The decision is,
however, only operative for the purposes
of
the Obscene Publications
Act, 1959. On a charge against a bookshop owner and his assistant
of
publishing obscene articles contrary to s. 2
(I)
of the Act the two
persons to whom publication was alleged were experienced police
officers who were employed in that department.
It
was their
job
to
make test purchases such as those in question. Under cross-examina-
tion, they both agreed
that
they had seen thousands
of
photographs
of
asimilar character to those in question, in the course of their
work, and that such photographs did not arouse any feelings in them
whatsoever. The defence agreed that the fact that the officers were
not
in fact depraved or corrupted by seeing the publications did not
conclude the matter, but it was submitted that in this case they were
officers who by the very nature
of
their employment were not even
susceptible
of
being depraved or corrupted, and in whom on their
own evidence the articles aroused no feeling and that, accordingly,
there was no evidence to go to the
jury
on the charge under s. 2 (I).
This argument did not convince the chairman
of
London sessions but
it did convince the Court
of
Criminal Appeal, which quashed the
convictions on this charge.
The court applied the principle, laid down in R. v. Barker
[1962]
1 All E.R. 748, that in the case
of
publication
of
an article by way
of
sale to a particular person the test of obscenity is whether the
effect
of
the article in question upon that person is such as to deprave
and corrupt him. The prosecution in R. v. Clayton &Halsey urged
that
regard should be had not only to the occupation and suscepti-
bility
of
the person to whom the article is published but to the nature
of
the article itself, and that in this case the photographs were
inherently so obscene as to tend to deprave
or
corrupt anyone to
whom they were published, whatever his occupation and whatever
he might say in evidence as to the absence
of
feelings aroused in him.
The Court, however, said
that
it could
not"
accept the contention
that
aphotograph may be inherently so obscene that even an
experienced or scientific viewer must be susceptible to some corrup-
tion from its influence". The judgment continues:
"The
degree
of
inherent obscenity is,
of
course, very relevant, but it must be related
to the susceptibility
of
the viewer. Further, while it is no doubt
theoretically possible
that
a
jury
could take the view that even a most
393 November-December 1962
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