Lawyer’s mission to overhaul our out-of-date obscenity laws

And it is a simple one – to bring the country’s current obscenity laws into the 21st Century.

As the self-styled “Obscenity Lawyer” Myles has been steadily making his mark and ruffling more than a few feathers in legal circles.

And he is currently doing all that from his mid-Essex home, in a village just outside Maldon.

A gifted lawyer in his own right, Myles started out his career working for a provincial law firm covering most of Essex on principally crimininal cases.

One of his first clients would set the tone for a cause that has become hugely important to Myles and has led him to become a trailblazer and pretty much the only lawyer of his kind focusing on defending people falling foul of obscenity laws.

“When I was first qualified one of my first cases was a porn case.

It was pure chance, really.

“I was really interested in it and I went to London and ended up representing a porn vendor who would have gone to prison if I had not entered arguments on his behalf about social values around sexuality.

“It might not be to everyone’s taste but my point is that if noone else is being hurt by it and it is consensual then it should be a person’s right to express themselves.

“In a nutshell, everyone is entitled to a private life and what people get up to in the privacy of their own homes and bedrooms should remain exactly that.

“But still people who go on to be acquitted of crimes are having their lives ruined because of laws that are 20 years out of date,” he explains.

He does not merely defend the accused, he has dedicated his life and purpose to rid the country of its laws criminalising extreme pornography – and he merely wants to make enough money to allow him to defend those who otherwise, in his view, be able to do so themselves.

His fledgling crusading efforts got noticed by the campaign group Backlash, formed ten years ago to defend freedom of sexual expression He became the group’s legal advisor, on a pro-bono basis and he has now become the first UK lawyer to crowdfund his work in this way.

“Pro-bono work means it is done for free. Most of my clients are unable to pay and there is no legal aid for this sort of thing.

“But I still believe they have the right to be defended and so I decided to launch the appeal on (crowdfunding platform) Patreon, asking for monthly donations to fund the activism.

“People can give a dollar or 150 dollars each month and it means I can continue to do the work I am doing.

Those he represents for his free speech pro bono activism include members of the Bondage Dominance and Sadomasochism and Lesbian Gay, Bisexual Transgender and Queer group and sex workers.

Myles, who was awarded the Law Society’s Junior Lawyer of the Year Excellence Award 2012 for his work representing sexual subcultures, is open about being an active member of the BDSM community, himself a regular on the fetish club scene, so it is no surprise he feels so strongly about the right to express yourself freely.

He says technological advances are now making the law at odds with its environment.

“For example, a 16-year-old who sends a naked selfie of themselves to a partner is guilty of sending an indecent image because they are under 18, even though they are above the age of consent.

“These are very modern problems.

“Any of these things can easily happen to anybody who has a mobile phone.”

Myles, who will turn 41 next month, was born in Basildon Hospital where his father, Mike, was a respected consultant.

His parents had met at the hospital where Myles’ mother Sue had been a radiographer.

He says: “Somewhere in the hospital there is the Michael Jackman Clinical Imaging Suite, named after him. I guess because they both worked there, it was a no-brainer that I would be born there.”

He went on to attend primary school in Maldon before going to boarding school in Canterbury, which he “loathed.”

Himself a victim of bullying as a child, it is perhaps understandable he nowwants to stand up for people perhaps unable to defend themselves.

Myles’ father died suddenly when he was 18 and studying law at university but his mother continues to live in Essex.

He is very definite about what he is hoping to achieve through his work: “I wanted to do this to create social change, I want to benefit society by challenging our arcane obscenity laws.”

He says anyone with a mobile phone is at risk of falling foul of the laws, citing a recent case where clients of his from the Essex area had their van stopped and searched on their way to work.

“As part of this their phones were seized and it turned out they were part of a What’s App group and on that group pornography, indecent images, had been sent.

“They did not ask for it or even look at it because they did not realise but they were prosecuted and did not get any legal aid.

“Those convictions would have stayed with them for the rest of their lives and impacted on what they did.

“Under the current law, even if you have not opened it or asked for it, you are in possession of an indecent image. This has happened to so many of my clients.”

ý Follow Myles on Twitter @obscenitylawyer or support his work via www.patreon.com/n MylesJackman