Photoshopper sentenced to life [UK]

[MicroBalrog]

Man made 'pseudo' child sex pics
A computer expert who altered pictures of naked women to make them look like children has been jailed indefinitely.

At an earlier hearing Stafford Sven Tudor-Miles, 38, from Middlesbrough, admitted five counts of making indecent pseudo-photographs of children.

Judge Tony Briggs was told of the defendant's previous convictions for sex crimes, over almost 20 years.

At Teesside Crown Court, he imposed an indefinite sentence, recommending that Tudor-Miles serves at least 15 months.

At the earlier hearing, the defendant also admitted one count of possessing the images and breaching a Sex Offender's Order.

House raided

Tudor-Miles, of Bankfields Road, Eston, Middlesbrough, scanned photographs of adult porn stars into his computer and manipulated the pictures using digital equipment.

He digitally reduced the breast sizes and altered the genitals to make them look like young girls. He added school uniforms to some images.

At an earlier hearing, his barrister argued the pictures were of adults and therefore no offence had been committed. But after failing to have the charges thrown out, he admitted the offences.

They were committed in January and February and came to light after Tudor-Miles' house was raided by police on a separate matter.

The court was told he had asked his GP for help to reduce his urges and sought psychiatric help.

'Public protection'

The court was told of previous convictions including in 1997 he was jailed for six years at Birmingham Crown Court after grabbing an 11-year-old girl at knifepoint, tying her up, putting tape over her eyes and then forcing her to commit a degrading sex act on him.

David Lamb, defending, said: "There is no exploitation of a child in this case. There is no evidence of distribution or trading.

"The end result was a rather crude and amateurish portrait."

The judge said: "It is clear to me that fantasising about children in a violent way is still part of your make up.

"In that situation I regret that this is a case where imprisonment for public protection is necessary in unusual circumstances."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/tees/5327826.stm


Micro Sez:

Now, this guy had done sick, illegal stuff before and did his time for it.

This has however no bearing on the following question:

Does anybody deserve a life sentence for digitally altering an image?

[Antibubba]

Actually, he was only sentence to 2 years, but a reporter admitted to superimposing a life sentence with Bubba as a cellmate, just to "spice" up the story a little.  


It's one thing to be punished for child molestation.  It's quite another for pedophilia, a sexual attraction to children, if no child is actually harmed or affected.

Thoughtcrime.

[Firethorn]

I have to agree with you Antibubba.  The whole point for the child porn laws were to prevent the exploitation of children sexually.  Here we have a case where the pictures were porn stars, just modified to make them look more childish.

I'd have to ask:  What children were harmed in the making of those pictures, and/or what children were placed in imminent danger because of it.  A generic 'all of them in the world/country/state/county/town' is insufficient.

I would accept it's usage as circumstantial evidence if he was caught stalking a kid or staking out a school, but if there's no other evidence he was going to take his actions further, I wouldn't have it be actionable.

[Nightfall]

I say they should have executed him anyway after his actions with the young girl.

However, I must admit I am a bit confused about the evidence for this particular conviction... small breasts and lack of pubic hair (I'm guessing that's it?) is tantamount to child porn? Actually, I'm not so sure I wanna delve into this anway... :/

[MicroBalrog]

I say they should have executed him anyway after his actions with the young girl.

However, I must admit I am a bit confused about the evidence for this particular conviction... small breasts and lack of pubic hair (I'm guessing that's it?) is tantamount to child porn?

And school uniforms! You forget the school uniforms!

I think somewhere along the road there, 'pursuing child molesters' got replaced by 'hunting down creepy people'.

I think this may be a problem in the future.

[Third_Rail]

I say they should have executed him anyway after his actions with the young girl.

I say that's quite an interesting world view. Lock up, etc., yes. Have a government sanctioned murder? No. Parent/other catching him in the act and killing him? Fine by me.


Once you start allowing murder by governments, things can get a wee bit out of hand pretty quick. When will the USA start murdering, ahem, I mean executing people for NFA violations? For drug violations? Where do you draw the line, and why?

[Nightfall]

Where do you draw the line, and why?

We draw the line at oppression of somebodys rights. We do that because those that do said have demonstrated beyond doubt that they are a threat to those with rights. We can do that because as somebody who has violated the rights of another, they have forfeited their own. No different than putting a round thru a dangerous animal.

[Third_Rail]

Well stated, but I still disagree with you in cases where the government would be the gunman.  

[Fly320s]

Bit of a thread drift...

Third_Rail, would you also object to a life-term prison sentence?  Just curious.

[Third_Rail]

No, I would not - as long as they could be released if there was an error, it's okay.


It's really hard to release someone after you've killed them if it was in error.

[SpookyPistolero]

I'm not trying to make a statement about whether the sentence was proper, but a thought about why it might be dealt with harshly is because it's fuel to the child pornography fire. If it is classically viewed as an addiction, amongst other things, then generating something meant to simulate child pornography would only help stimulate the underground. My point being that it might be victimless now but it helps to grow the potential for future vicimization.

Either way, there are dangerous trends towards punishing people for something they 'might' do, instead of what they have actually done.  The worst of possible consequences is that people start feeling guilty simply for having the potential to do wrong, and having a populace feel communally guilty without cause is another form of control.

[HankB]

I understand the rationale behind kiddie-porn laws - children are not legally considered old enough to give reasoned consent, so participating in that market, exploiting the kids, DOES victimize them.

And people who victimize little kids ought to be . . . well, it's probably not appropriate to post here. Suffice it to say my ideas of appropriate punishment would go far beyond anything offered by the legal system.

But photoshopping adult porn stars . . . sure sounds grotesque, deviant & sick, but if no kids are actually involved in any way, shape, or form . . . ?

Since the guy was already a convicted sex offender (who by the way IMHO should have still been in prison!) maybe he was already under some sort of order to keep away from all porn as a condition of his release?

[Iapetus]

Bear in mind that this "Life" sentance might last only 15 months.  

The UK has a rule whereby someone convicted of a second crime of a particular type (serious sex crime or serious violent crime, I think, but I'm not too sure of the details) getting an automatic life sentance.  This guy may have fallen foul of that rule.

However "Life" just means "indefinate", with the judge setting a minimum term.  In many cases, where it is doubtful whether the crime really warrented actual life imprisonment, this minimum tarrif has been something very small (like the 15 months in this example).

This has also had the effect of completely devaluing the notion of a "life" sentance, as it now so often doesn't mean actual life.  Regardless of whether this particular guy should have been jailed for life, or 15mo, or not at all (or still been in jail for his last offence), there have been a lot of people who have been given very short "life" sentances for things that many people feel should deserve much, much longer.  (And which I expect many THR/APS members would recomend much, much shorter "life" terms, if you know what I mean )

[MicroBalrog]

One must remember that Britain does ban simulated child pornography (i.e., computer generated images like the ones invovled here).

[Perd Hapley]

Iapetus (Jupiter?) is penalized for illegal use of a's - repeatedly.  Is that standard spelling in the UK?

[Iapetus]

Iapetus (Jupiter?) is penalized for illegal use of a's - repeatedly.  Is that standard spelling in the UK?

Oops, sorry, my mistake.

Sentence is one of those words I keep forgetting which way it is spelt, and I didn't have a dictionary handy, Word wasn't working properly so I couldn't spell-check it.