.

             Possession Offences: .

             As a result of Operation Starburst six cases of simple possession offences were brought to court. .

             Case of Sharp .

             Following Operation Starburst, a management consultant named Christopher Sharp has been fined £9000 (Nigel Bunyan, "Man fined £9000 for Internet porn", [1995] The Electronic Telegraph, 27 October). He is the first person to be prosecuted in a case involving pornography and the Internet. Sharp admitted two charges of possessing indecent photographs of children under the age of 16 contrary to section 160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. His computer equipment was seized, he was fined £4500 on each charge, and he was ordered to pay £35.00 costs. .

             Case of Crumpton .

             In early 1996, Martin Crumpton, a former computer consultant, was sentenced to three months imprisonment in a Birmingham magistrates' court (See "Man jailed over child pornography on Internet", [1996] The Electronic Telegraph, 5 January). He also admitted to being in possession of indecent pictures of children and is the first person to be jailed in an offence concerning pornography and the Internet.

             US CHILD PORNOGRAPHY LEGISLATION .

             It is a federal offence to knowingly receive child pornography. Child pornography is defined as: "any visual depiction of "sexually explicit conduct" involving children". .

             Pseudo-Photographs.

             None of the US federal or state laws deal with so called pseudo-photographs. It is not illegal to create or possess pornographic images of children by means of computers. Child Pornography Prevention Act 1995 was introduced to criminalize material that depicts children engaging in sexually-explicit conduct whether or not the material was produced with children or entirely without computer.

             Pseudo-photographs will be subject to the Miller obscenity test and other federal laws dealing with obscenity but not child pornography. It will be up to the defendant to prove that the creation of the pictures did not involve minors.