Most people find violent and abusive pornography offensive, and the availability of such images has been vastly increased by the internet. This has led to demands for government intervention, which resulted yesterday in proposals for a new British law to ban the possession of "extreme pornographic material". However, the difficulties in drafting such legislation are enormous - and the need for it is unproved.

The proposed British law would cover pornography depicting bestiality, necrophilia, serious violence in a sexual context and serious sexual violence. Publishing and distributing such images is already an offence in Britain, but internet users can acquire them from websites outside the UK. The government says making possession an offence would discourage the use of material that is "abhorrent to most people and has no place in our society".