Andrew Holland, a 51-year-old bus driver from the UK, says that he suffered a heart attack, was harassed, lost his job, was forced to move from his home, was unable to see his child, and was targeted by online vigilantes after being charged for violating Britain’s “extreme pornography laws” a few years ago. The pornographic videos in question — which Holland stated friends sent to him as a joke — were discovered by police who had confiscated Holland’s computer because of an unrelated domestic dispute, of which he was never formally changed.
So just how bad were these videos, to be the root of so much turmoil in this poor man’s life? You know, just your run-of-the-mill “lady banging a tiger” porno.
Except that it actually wasn’t.
He said he viewed one for just six seconds but the charges led to him being the subject of “widespread ridicule” and being mistakenly labelled a paedophile. After more than six months on bail, the charge of possession of an extreme pornographic image was dropped in December 2009 when prosecutors realized that the “animal” was a man dressed up in a tiger suit.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it only recognized that it was a man when the tiger was heard on the soundtrack saying “that’s grrrrrrreat”, like Tony the Tiger from Frosties’ breakfast cereal adverts.
Aside from that being a really creepy thing to say during sex — really?? It look prosecutors six months to realize that a tiger banging a woman while reciting the catchphrase from a popular breakfast cereal character wasn’t actually a real tiger? That’s some crack policing right there, Britain.
In addition to the tiger porn, there was one more video that took a little bit longer to clear Holland’s his name of.
Similar charges against Mr Holland were dropped nine months later in relation to a second clip called The Pain Olympics – a spoof video put together using “prosthetics, cocktail sausages and ketchup”, according to its producers.
Unless there was a “Heinz” label involved, I do not think I want to know how “The Pain Olympics” was eventually debunked. In fact, I never, ever want to think about “The Pain Olympics” ever again.
(The Independent via NY Daily News)