Isleworth Crown Court Appeal

In the Isleworth Crown Court between Graham Ovenden (Appellant) and the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (Respondent).

The two day hearing at Isleworth Crown Court (19^th & 20^th May 2016) dedicated to the destruction of Historic and Art Photographs, also a number of Graphic works by the appellant, followed the norms that we have come to expect in such hearings. The senior Judge, The male Recorder for the Royal Boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, was flanked by two female JPs Ms S McGregor and Mrs A Newmark. All progressed in an orderly fashion with Barrister Robert Linford and Solicitor T J O'Callighan (who had offered their services free) representing the appellant.

The first major error on behalf of the Respondent and their Barrister, reiterated by the Senior Judge was to misname certain anatomical parts of the female. They were obviously following the standard legislation (ie the 1978 Protection of Children act and its subsequent revisions 2009). The Vagina is the tubular interior organ which leads directly into the womb. The frontal aspect one sees on the female body (assuming no great amount of pubic hair covers all) is named the Pudenda, obviously more noticeable on a child than an adult. It would seem that the legislators of the 1978 act and their revisers over a period of years are (at least as far as basic anatomy is concerned, illiterate). The senior judge and his flanking JPs should have known this, instead of invoking ill judged and ill defined legislation.
The photographic works presented by the Police Barrister were judged, both historical and those of the appellant, (whose works were created no later than 1987) under the 2009 legislation. It would be hard to imagine a more crass piece of legality as it totally denies that a work of art can exist as a defence, even if it is palpably that of a work of art. This corrupt situation obviously has an affinity with the iconoclasm that is bedevilling the greater world at this moment. Can it be that the Judges concerned are following in the footsteps of the fundamentalists who order the destruction of that which is precious? Certainly the educated, impartial observer would wonder at the actions, not only of the police, but also a senior judge and his two collaborators. The word collaborator is not an exaggeration as the judge was continually using descriptive definitions (neither of the two woman JPs spoke a single word during the two days hearing) used by Judge Roscoe: definitions which are not the normal language of the visually educated. There was obvious connivance at work: the cornerstone of all good judging, that of impartiality, seems to have flown from this particular gentleman and his lady JPs.
One particular contentious situation which arose (brilliantly argued by Mr Linford on behalf of the appellant) was the nature of the relationship between words and picture, ie the poetry broadsheet, that which can encompass the supreme works of a William Blake or the simple ballad tracts which were such an important part of popular communication for four centuries until the advent of cheap newspapers in the 1840's. It is a literary form still with us and flourishing. Unfortunately the presiding judge (siding with the police barrister) seems to have decided that the history of actuality, the patently obvious to any educated individual, has never existed. Words and the pictorial moulded together do not influence each other was his verdict. One need only present one example that will show the lie to the judge, that of the terrifying image of the decapitated and dismembered body of a partisan from Goya's Disasters of War. The addition of the two words What Horror (in translation) to this terrifying image, immediately dismisses all sense of distaste and accusations of vulgarity, opening the sensitive viewer to his or hers humanity, and no doubt despair, at the depraved actions of mankind. One may well question how a senior judge and his associates could prove so seeming ill educated on a subject which is an important part of our literary heritage. Many of the poetry broad sheets dealt with both the positive aspects of childhood, also many with the sorrows of those used and abused by Mammon. These poems and pictures represent the voice of ravished innocence, the child's anguish, often without hope, their words are often stark as if come from the grave. How dare you Judges deny the child its retribution by the destruction of its words!

Thus once more your sins of the past lay buried with your victims... Shame on you.
Another aspect of negativity to be found, both in the Respondent and the Judges view of

The Child of Grace is that of an obsessive tendency to lay their own sexual interpretations and inadequacies onto the subject concerned. The pretence of any judge, or layman for that matter, that he or she can be an arbiter on behalf of Mr and Mrs Everyman

is completely spurious, particularly as the hermetic nature of the Courtroom and the very history of LAW acts against an unprejudiced understanding of the human situation. (I refer the reader to the first chapter of Uncle Tom's Cabin which contains one of the great criticisms against the law in Western Culture). Mr and Mrs Everyman are not clones created by our legislators, or equally the servants of those who are employed to carry out their dictates, ie the bureaucrats. They are individuals of all creeds and colours and are perfectly able to come to their own conclusion on matters of art and the law without the supposed help of the visually illiterate and spiritually corrupt. Despite the surface of civilized behaviour found in the representatives of the judiciary, in the final analysis their play of wig and gown (in Shakespeare's words) “does but skin and film the ulcerous place while rank corruption lies within. Thus when the Judge enacts the fantasy of a none existent Mr and Mrs Everyman and the supposed sexual neurosis of the time created by the Tabloid mentality, he aligns himself with a false morality, that of the Witch Hunt.

One singular example of this tendency to invention was enacted by the police barrister when presenting certain graphic and photographic images to the judges. It included what can only be referred to as a sort of Golden Mean of the genitals. As far as it was able to be understood by one who has published some eight volumes on the history of photography, let alone more articles on that discipline than he can now count: well it seemed to him to bear more affinities with the alchemical use of line and proportion than other. No doubt the average Witch or upholder of the Black Arts may have understood the theories expounded.

The writer includes a small group of attachments depicting both the historical works and that of the appellant. These were found not indecent and thus are completely legal. Also they remarkably reflect the imagery which was found indecent... there is no obvious difference between the two categories, this in itself shows a serious level of visual incompetence and corrupts any conclusions of the Court.

Numerically, since all items presented to the court by the police Barrister already had a destruction order on them, any item saved whether historical or works by the Appellant (a considerable number of these being created over 50 years ago, none later than 1987) we may conclude that any saved and found not indecent was an individual triumph over the unfortunate nature of the previous judgement. In fact there were a considerable number of successes in favour of the Appellant including three works from the Pierre Louys collection. This has left some twenty seven images from the Pierre Louys collection to be destroyed. It cannot be emphasised strongly enough that there is no difference in pose or sentiment between those ordered for destruction and those deemed not indecent. It would seem that the order of the day, when judging a work of art, demands that both legislation and those servants of destruction employed by the Judiciary be visually illiterate. We may well wonder as our culture falls into greater despond and the ill educated play their vicious games... No doubt Dante's ring of Hell (the destroyers of art) may find its property somewhat over populated.