A WOMAN whose daughter was killed by a man who was obsessed with violent pornography on the internet won her fight yesterday for a new law that will make possession of such images a criminal offence.

Announcing the move, Vernon Coaker, a Home Office Minister, said that conviction for possessing “violent and extreme pornography” would be punishable by up to three years in jail.

The Home Office is to press ahead with legislation despite a majority of those who were asked whether the law needed to be strengthened saying no (241 respondents said that the law should not be changed, 143 said that it should).

Many of those against the law are afraid that it will criminalise private photographs taken by a husband or wife practising bondage, domination, submission and mastery and sado-masochism. Others fear that it could catch mainstream horror films and will be difficult for the police to enforce.

The Home Office has decided nevertheless to make the possession and viewing of violent images of rape and sexual torture a criminal offence.

The decision follows a campaign by Liz Longhurst, whose daughter Jane, 31, a special needs teacher, was killed in 2003. Graham Coutts, a musican convicted of her murder, has won an appeal against conviction and faces a possible retrial.

His trial was told that Ms Longhurst died hours after Coutts, 36, had viewed internet pornography sites that depicted necrophilia and hanging. He was said to have kept the body in a storage unit for 35 days, during which he visited the unit ten times.

Mrs Longhurst, who lives in Berkshire, said: “My daughter Sue and myself are very pleased that after 30 months of intensive campaigning we have persuaded the Government to take action against these horrific internet sites, which can have such a corrupting influence and glorify extreme sexual violence.”

Mr Coaker said that the vast majority of people “find these forms of violent and extreme pornography deeply abhorrent”. He said: “This sort of material is not just offensive, it contains images of sexual acts and sexual violence that are already illegal to publish or distribute in the UK.

“Such material has no place in our society but the advent of the internet has meant that this material is more easily available and means existing controls are being bypassed. We must move to tackle this.”

He said that the proposed ban, which is expected to be included in legislation introduced in the next session of Parliament, would send a strong message that possession of the material was not acceptable.

The law will not be restricted to extreme online pornography. Currently it is an offence to publish and distribute such material, but not an offence to possess it.

Under yesterday’s proposals the maximum penalty for publication, distribution and possession for gain will be increased from three to five years in jail.

A Home Office spokesman said that the new law was not intended to target people who accidentally came into contact with obscene pornography; nor would it hit the mainstream adult entertainment industry, which works within current obscenity laws.

Jim Gamble, the chief executive of the new Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, said that legislation would be truly effective only if it developed step by step with technological advances.

“The proposed new offence starts to answer that need in respect of how the internet can be used to supplement this area of criminality,” he said.

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