EVERY KNOWN FORM OF PERVERSION
Tabitha Troughton spends a day
with the Obscene Publications Squad, and is suitably sickened
'I HOPE I haven't upset you,' said Sergeant Bernie Meaden solicitously as I staggered out of the room, green-faced and shaky around the knees. Privately, I was wondering why on earth I'd ever agreed to watch a selection of pornographic videos seized by the Obscene Publications Squad. It had seemed safe enough. Like most members of the public, I was under the impression that the squad's officers spent half their time reading girlie magazines and
the rest trying to spot willies in otherwise innocuous films. How wrong I was. After just one display of the biological horrors on offer, I would have given a lot for the sight of a normal penis, and a lot more to see ►t doing something even vaguely connected with reproduction.
Other members of the squad were wait- ing avidly outside.
`Are you all right?' they chorused. 'Did that disgusting show of human degradation `Marry me, Debbie, and let me take you away from all this.' and infamy make you feel ill?' I was forced to admit that it had, a little. 'And that was just Sergeant Meaden,' they guffawed. `What a t'riffic bunch,' said Meaden fond- ly. 'Absolutely t'riffic. Just listen to that banter.'
It is rather endearing to discover a group of vice-hardened policemen behav- ing like something out of Boy's Own. It's not only the schoolboy chaffing, but the impression that at some stage the office has gone through a form of moral time- Warp. Mary Whitehouse herself would be proud of statements like 'We have a duty to protect people from themselves' and Call me old-fashioned, but there are stan- dards'. And the team ethos is paramount. We all look after each other,' says Mead- en, one of the squad's chief operatives. You can't talk about this sort of work to your families — you have to rely on your team. And they do a great job.' The squad is based on the seventh floor of Scotland Yard, where the 14 police offi- cers mount over 100 major operations a Year, acting on information from members of the public, informers and press adverts for 'adult' videos. Ten civil servants then have the task of watching the seized videos. Girlie magazines are apparently passé; videos depicting every known form of perversion are the craze, and the squad has over 10,000 of them still waiting to be viewed.
Like a visit to the chiropodist, a session at the Obscene Publications Squad com- pels you to question the sanity of anyone who would willingly choose this as a pro- fession.
PC Len Yeoell rejoices in the title of squad expert in sadism and masochism', which must get a rapturous reception at dinner parties. 'It's the pinnacle of a vice man's career,' he insists. Civil servants don't even have that excuse. 'Er . . . yes . . . people do think You take this job to look at dirty videos all day,' admits David Miller, shifting a trifle nervously in his seat. He spends up to five hours a day in a viewing room lined with video screens, noting down the finer points of the action for prosecution purposes. The room also contains a real television to lighten the atmosphere — I experienced the bizarre sensation of watching Sex Slaves 2 to a background noise of Neigh- bours. (Sergeant Meaden turned Neigh- bours off half way through, claiming that he couldn't bear it any more.) It's comfort- ing to discover that not just any old civil servant gets the job. These boys are care- fully selected and, like the officers, receive regular counselling. 'In case it affects you. .Which it doesn't, of course,' Miller adds hastily. 'People say "what a great job, watching pornography all day". But it's not.'
The public's flippant attitude tends to nettle officers in daily contact with materi- al which makes the Marquis de Sade look like a man of rare sexual conformity. Unsurprisingly, the seventh floor of Scot- land Yard is awash with nostalgia for the good old days of Health and Efficiency, Penthouse and Playboy. 'Once we would have seized the magazines you see on the top shelves of newsagents,' says Meaden. `We've been dragged away — we haven't willingly moved away — from previous positions by the decisions of courts and magistrates. But', he adds sternly, 'you have to remember that we are not the cus- todians of public morality. It's not up to us to decide what's obscene. It's up to the courts.'
Courts can, however, be idiosyncratic, to say the least, about what constitutes obscenity. This is partly because the Obscene Publications Act reflects the peculiarly British, highly ambiguous atti- tude to pornography. 'In a nutshell,' explains Meaden, 'it says that articles should be deemed to be obscene if they tend to deprave or corrupt those likely to see, hear or read them. But it doesn't define "deprave or corrupt". And we're in a situation where goalposts are constantly moving.' He waved a magazine under my nose, the contents of which looked highly dangerous, if not physically impossible. `I've been to the Crown Court three times with this. And each time they've decided it isn't a Section 2 — which means we can't prosecute. We're not going to be accused of wasting the court's time by persisting.'
And nowadays people no longer have to go under the counter to get that sort of kick. There's satellite porn. There's com- puter porn. Not to mention the fact that anyone who wants extreme violence can just switch on the news. The squad appears to be fighting a losing battle. Officers deny this with the air of an ostrich which has pulled its head out of the ground, taken a good look round and dived straight back again. 'It doesn't get me down,' says Mead- en dispiritedly. 'The public will end up see- ing what they want to see,' he adds. 'Maybe people get what they deserve, I don't know,' echoes PC Yeoell.
There was a thoughtful pause. Then, to my horror, Meaden pulled out yet another magazine. 'Go on, look at this — "Women and their peculiar fascination for animals". It's sold in clear wrapping with a warning on the back not to buy it if you're easily offended.' I opened it with trepidation. Inside were a number of girls in coy poses. Underneath each was a line like 'Susie has a hamster called Harry' or 'Janice is very fond of her pet snake Rupert.'
`And punters have forked out 25 quid for that,' gloated Meaden. 'That really cheers me up, that does. I think it's great.' I left the office to the sound of him still chuck- ling. Even the most difficult of jobs has its compensations.
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