A petition to ban "violent sex Web sites" in Britain has pulled in a reported 30,000 signatures and the support of at least one member of the British Parliament.
Elizabeth Longhurst launched the campaign earlier this year, after her daughter Jane was murdered by a man who had previously viewed Web sites depicting necrophilia. Graham Coutts was convicted of strangling Jane at his East Sussex home in early 2003. The prosecution convinced a jury that Coutts murdered the Brighton schoolteacher for sexual gratification after viewing necrophilia Web sites. Coutts kept Longhurst’s body over a month, first in a shed and then at a storage unit, until he was caught on camera moving the body, according to news reports of the trial.
Called the Jane Longhurst Campaign Against Violent Internet Pornography, the petition denounces "the presence of extreme Internet sites promoting violence against women in the name of sexual gratification," and supports the Longhurst family's call for the British government and British Internet service providers to block access to necrophiliac and similar Web sites, and to amend the British Obscene Publications Act to make it a crime to possess such images.
David Lepper, Brighton Pavilion's member of Parliament, is reportedly preparing to raise the ban with the British Home Secretary, though he also reportedly acknowledged putting such a ban in place would be difficult. Lepper also said he would continue the campaign with the Longhurst family.
Coutts was sentenced to life and is appealing the conviction and sentence.
The Longhurst family has become active in fighting Internet crime or Internet-inspired crime in other ways since the 31-year-old woman's murder. Her sister, Susan Barnett, was invited in March to join the board of directors of the Internet Awareness and Advisory Foundation as its director of business development.
"Complacency and excuses are not enough," Barnett said upon her joining. "I am joining the IAAF because they are as keen as my family and I to see positive action from the Government and ISPs to put a stop to people being able to view illegal material online, and to criminalize those Web sites showing extreme pornographic violence.
"At the end of Jane's trial we were told that it was too difficult to stop people in the U.K. from viewing these sorts of despicable Web sites," she continued. "Even if we only manage to initially stop seventy percent of illegal material being viewed in the U.K. at least we are trying to do something about it. I'm tired of hearing the old argument that it is impossible to police the Internet, which is why I will be actively involved with the IAAF."
