[6] Coutts testified that he wrapped a pair of tights around Longhurst's neck as part of consensual sex and that her death was an accident;[7] he said it was the first occurrence of a sexual act between them.
[2] Evidence was given by a defence witness that several years earlier, Longhurst had whispered to a colleague that a sexual encounter the previous night had "involved some kind of stopping breathing".
[1] Djurovic's evidence was contested by defence pathologist, Richard Shepherd, whose expert opinion was that death could have occurred very quickly by vagal inhibition, taking as little as one or two seconds.
[15] The possible link with what the Government termed "extreme pornography" led to calls from Longhurst's mother Liz, the police, MP Martin Salter and Home Secretary David Blunkett to ban such websites.
[6][5][16] A campaign by the government and Liz Longhurst collected a petition of over 50,000 signatures[17] calling for a ban on "extreme internet sites promoting violence against women in the name of sexual gratification" after the original murder conviction of Coutts.
[18] Unable to shut down the websites, many of which were legally hosted in the UK and US, the Home Office was motivated to consult on criminalising possession of "extreme pornographic material", including images of consenting adults, and staged "realistic depictions" of such acts.
The Consenting Adult Action Network protested against the resultant law,[20] and SM group Unfettered created a campaign, Backlash, in opposition to such changes.
Critics said that the reverse may be true, citing evidence from Japan, the United States, Denmark and elsewhere that sexually motivated crime negatively correlates with the availability of pornography, or that such laws could criminalize those who are not violent.
[17] On 26 January 2009, Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 came into force in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, introducing a new offence of possession of "extreme pornographic images".