01.01.70
LONDON — Gay fetish filmmaker Michael Peacock on Friday was exonerated on six obscenity counts for distributing DVDs featuring virile fisting, urination and BDSM.
The Peacock ruling is perhaps the most significant U.K. obscenity lawsuit of the decade and could clarify Britain's Obscene Publications Act 1959.
Peacock was charged after an clandestine officer purchased six DVDs at his house in January 2009. He ran a gay chaperon site called "Sleazy Michael" and advertised the hardcore gay DVDs for traffic on Craigslist.
Jurors in the case were asked to weigh whether Peacock violated the statute's “deprave and crooked” test.
Under the test, defined in Section 1 of the Act, "An article shall be deemed to be indecent if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if entranced as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having heed to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
Source: XBIZ