Langham launches sentence appeal
Actor Chris Langham is appealing against a 10-month prison sentence for downloading images and videos of child abuse from the internet.
Papers were lodged with the Court of Appeal on Tuesday.
The 58-year-old Bafta winner, from Golford, Kent, was jailed in September after being found guilty of 15 counts of making an indecent photo of a child.
He had admitted viewing images but denied the charges. Langham is due to be released from prison in early 2008.
The father-of-five was convicted at Maidstone Crown Court on 2 August.
The jury cleared him of having sex with an underage girl.
Computer and laptop
Sentencing him on 14 September, Judge Philip Statman said: "Your activity took place in the comfort of your own home, no doubt at the time feeling safe in the knowledge that you would never be caught."
Langham is currently due to serve about half of his 10-month sentence.
He was arrested in November 2005 when video files of child abuse were found on a computer, a laptop and an external hard disk drive at his home.
The actor claimed during his trial that he was researching a paedophile character for the TV series Help, and was also trying to make sense of sexual abuse he said he had suffered as a child.
Comment: I can't for the life of me understand why Chris Langham is launching an appeal against sentence. A 10 month sentence is not the end of the world, he will only serve half of it anyway, 5 months, it is no great shakes. It may be that the Court of Appeal feels that the sentence was unduly lenient and increases it instead of leaving it as it is or decreasing it.
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What's the difference between art and porn?
This on the other hand is not child pornography. The picture, Klare and Edda belly-dancing, is part of a 139-image collection by the American photographer Nan Goldin.
I am surprised that the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead contacted the police to ask whether the exhibit was child pornography. Given that the photo has been around for awhile and shown in several art galleries around the world. Are we becoming the laughing stock of Europe? Welcome to Hicksville...
That photographer is of course engaged in deliberately testing and busting of taboos. Pushing the envelope. Take the envelope of conservatism away and the picture would probably not be in the show. Discuss. AND the picture may be capable of engaging or encouraging users. Discuss that too. I would put it in a gallery, probably. But almost certainly not on my website.
ReplyDeleteChris: Some of Nan Goldin's work can be controversial. I refrained from posting on this until I had seen the photo to see for myself what all the fuss is about. Much ado about nothing. It's definitely a photo. Is it art? I think it can be classed as art. Is it child pornography? I don't believe it is. Could be just the art gallery in a PR drive to gain public attention...
ReplyDeleteWell it has certainly improved the artist's profile in the public eye.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, most balanced people would find the photo cute, one can find perversion in almost anything. Some people are turned on by car exhaust pipes (I kid you you not!)
Should we by these parameters ban pictures of cars?
A bit extreme I know, but as you know One man's meat is another man's poison. (you know what I mean.) Photographs of kiddies can be used for the wrong purpose in the wrong hands BUT when they are displayed in a gallery where folk cannot wander in and copy them??
Russia and book-burning springs to mind.
On another note, I had never heard of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. I have now, along with many other people.
ReplyDeleteNo such thing as "bad publicity", is there?
Most people, particularly parents, would feel a tad uncomfortable viewing this image.
ReplyDeleteIt IS a harmless photograph if it were taken on the spur of the moment within the family. However, it is not a photograph even a family would want to keep as anyone looking at it is bound to question the motives of the photographer. Why was the photographer directly in line with the girl's genitals when the children were innocently playing? Why wasn't that picture taken from a more usual angle? How come the camera to hand when the child had no underwear on? It looks like innocent play but if you think of the adult behind the camera perhaps suggesting what they are wear, or take off; perhaps suggesting the the position to get in, then it is a pornagraphic image and I applaud the person who acted on their gut instinct and informed the police.
But the gallery still allowed the artist to display the content first; the gallery directors would have seen specimens of what the artist intended to display but waited until it was on the wall and open to the public before informing the stazi.
ReplyDeleteClearly a case of the gallery director's desire to raise the profile of the gallery in the media - and it worked.
common... its not even close to art nor porn.... its disgustin. as a mother im offended.. sick sick sicko....(re author)
ReplyDelete