Porn case heralds UK cyber court

The first case of the Internet being used in a court case will start tomorrow. Kingston Crown Court will wire up jurors, witnesses, barristers and the judge to give an indication as to how porn is moved over the Internet.

The equipment - which cost £5000 - will show how the seven defendants in a child porn case managed to distribute and share indecent photos of kids between themselves using the Internet. Every two jurors will share a computer and see how the porn is downloaded.

The case is important in the sense that it may set a legal precedent over Web distribution of porn. The equipment has already been tested with court staff standing in as replacements.

The great advantage of the equipment is that jurors will be saved from tedious and lengthy explanations of how the Internet works and will simply see it from the user's point of view.

It's a good thing, but we are simply waiting for some "visionary" to extrapolate the case into some sort of "by 2005, all cases will be run over the Internet with jurors logging on from their home PCs and the judge will be in Borneo" nonsense, ie. use it as an excuse to gain some publicity. ®