A Fife shopkeeper received a fine of £53 for displaying hard-core pornography in a family store right down to floor level. Saeed Ahmed, 57, who runs Newsworld, St Clair Street, Kirkcaldy, failed to turn up at court three times. He then pleaded guilty to a charge of indecent display. The conviction, which took around 9 months, was the first under The Indecent Displays (Control) Act Scotland 1981 in at least a decade.
After being tipped off by school boys from the local High School, Viewforth High, members of The Front Page Campain investigated the store and made a complaint to the police. The materials that were on display at that time included DVDs on the bottom shelf showing images of group sex and oral sex on their front covers, along with a large number of magazines that would normally be considered "top shelf" titles.
Mr Ahmed claimed to have been rearranging his shop at the time the complaint was made, but campaigners had checked the display several times, months apart, and it had not changed noticably in that time. He also claimed that the magazines were in a corner of the shop away from the shoolchildren. However, the display took up almost a quarter of the small shop and was placed next to such items as fizzy juice and fruit.
Amy King commented, "The fact that blatantly displaying hardcore images to children has resulted in a fine on a par with dog fouling, shows that this issue is not being taken seriously. If an adult showed those images to a child at home it would raise a serious child protection issue, and yet to do so on mass does not."