Bermuda- Former Cabinet Secretary Leo Mills yesterday blasted “hypocritical” laws that mean shops can sell pornographic magazines but see people prosecuted for bringing in pornographic DVDs.

Brandishing a pornographic magazine called Players Nasty in court, Mr. Mills, now a lawyer, said: “If you can walk into a legitimate business place and purchase this kind of material (vibrators or magazines) then it does not seem to me entirely appropriate that someone who imports this same kind of material exposes themselves to prosecution when you can buy the same kind of material without any difficulty at all.”

He added: “Quite honestly, in this day and age it really is a disgrace that a man would be brought before the court for such an offence.”

Mr. Mills was representing Anthony Adcock, 34, of Cambridge Road, Sandys, who admitted importing 108 pornographic digital discs on January 24 in a Fed Ex package.

The articles were detected after a routine inspection found it contained pornography from a Playtime Cinema company rather than $1,100 of computer software expected to be inside.

Mr. Adcock said the package was his and also admitted he had brought similar DVDs in for paying customers before.

But Mr. Mills asked the court to give Adcock a minimal fine of $100 instead of a maximum fine of $5,000 or even prison and said such materials were freely available within the community.

Adcock was fined $1,000 for the offence.

Crown counsel Cindy Clarke applied to have the DVDs destroyed.

Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo ordered her to bring the DVDs to Magistrates’ Court on August 22 where she would have to prove they were “obscene” before the videos could be confiscated or destroyed.

After the hearing, Mr. Mills said: “The point that I was trying to convey to the court was that there already exists those types of films on Internet and through satellite and in movie stores.

“It just seems kind of ludicrous when other entities are essentially selling the same material – they also have to import those materials themselves, whether they be raunchy adult materials etc. It is a question for Customs.

“But if he (a defendant) as a member of the public faces a criminal charge for importing those types of materials, what then happens when a business has those types of materials?

“Like the judge said, there is hypocrisy in many areas of the community which needs to be addressed.”

Separately, Dwight McDonald Lambert, 41, of Sound View Court, Sandys also appeared before Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo, facing allegations of importing pornographic DVDs.

The alleged offences took place on February 17, March 3 and on May 9 and it is alleged that Lambert, who was unrepresented, brought in a total of 22 DVDs.

He denied the allegations and will appear in court on November 14 for trial.

Mr. Tokunbo advised him to get a lawyer and released him on $3,000 bail for each of the offences.