R v Peacock

R v Peacock
Michael Peacock celebrating his victory outside of Southwark Crown Court.
Court	Southwark Crown Court
Full case name	R v Michael Peacock
Decided	6 January 2012

R v Peacock was an English Crown Court case that was a test of the Obscene Publications Act 1959. In December 2009, the defendant, a male escort named Michael Peacock, had been charged by the Metropolitan Police for selling hardcore gay pornography that the police believed had the ability to "deprave or corrupt" the viewer, which was illegal under the Obscene Publications Act. He was subsequently acquitted through a trial by jury in January 2012.

At the time, Peacock was the only individual to have successfully pleaded 'not guilty' under the Act in a case involving the kind of gay BDSM pornography which he published. Legal experts said that, following the case, the Obscene Publications Act now "made no sense". It was also notable as one of the early cases in the English courts where live tweeting was a significant source of reporting and publicising the deliberations of the case following the 14 December 2011 guidance from the Lord Chief Justice which allowed tweeting in English Courts.

The man at the centre of the trial was Michael Peacock (born 6 September 1958), an independent male escort who had been operating in the profession since November 2004. A former railway worker, Peacock decided to enter the sex industry in his mid-40s. At the time of the police investigation, Peacock advertised his services on his own personal website, entitled "Sleazy Michael", and also advertised hardcore pornographic DVDs for sale on the Craigslist website. Some of these DVDs included films which featured extreme sexual acts between men, such as BDSM (whipping, staged kidnapping and rape play), fisting and urolagnia.

While these acts were themselves not illegal in the United Kingdom at the time, the Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command of the Metropolitan Police considered such DVDs illegal under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, which prohibited the sale of materials that could "deprave and corrupt" the viewer. In January 2009 they sent an undercover police officer to purchase some of these DVDs from Peacock at his home in Finsbury Park, North London. On 14 December 2009, the Metropolitan Police charged Peacock with six counts under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. If found guilty he could have faced a five-year prison sentence.