Man Gets Three Months in Jail for Possession of Cartoon Porn
Ronald Clark's lawyer called his client's three-month jail sentence for possession of cartoon pornography a case of "law gone mad."
The New Zealand resident claims he downloaded the videos, which depict "clearly young" elves, pixies, trolls "and other fantasy creatures having sex," three years ago as "a bit of a laugh."
Clark, who was previously convicted and sentenced to rehabilitation for "indecently assaulting a teenage boy," said he was not sexually interested in the images, but rather was fond of them "for their artistic merit."
He also asked the court if his conviction in this case couldn't lead to someone else being charged for "possessing objectionable images of stick figures."
But at least one person didn't find Clark's conviction an absurd overreach on the part of the justice system.
Alan Bell, director of the anti-child pornography group ECPAT said he was worried the images could encourage people "to migrate from there to the real thing."
"The distribution of it is damaging," he continued. "You have to ask what impact does it have even if it's not harming [an individual child]."
New Zealand's courts have taken issue with cartoon pornography in the past, most recently charging a Chinese student for importing DVDs containing "cartoon animations depicting rape, abuse, and bestiality involving eels."
Those charges were eventually dropped.
In the US, a man's large collection of manga landed him in legal trouble because some of the comics were found to contain depictions of child sex and bestiality.
