Talk:The Age of Innocence (Hamilton book)

A fact from The Age of Innocence (Hamilton book) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 February 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in 2010, a man from England was convicted on child pornography charges for purchasing books, including The Age of Innocence, from a mainstream bookshop?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2013/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The Age of Innocence (book).

Wikipedia

Police threat

I'm piecing together a bit of a puzzle here. As is currently stated in the article, The Guardian originally claimed on June 23, 2005 that the 2005 conviction was a "landmak ruling" against Hamilton's artwork. Then they printed a retraction of this statement on July 12, 2005.[1] In between printing this false claim and retracting it the following article was written which states that following the conviction police gave warning that anyone in possession of one of Hamilton's books could be charged. [2]. As you can see from this article, it is also claimed that the courts decision was a "landmark ruling", as it was printed before Hamilton's spokespeople presumably sent a nasty letter to The Guardian trying to correct the error. The article David Hamilton (photographer) used to have the following text in it:

"In 2005, a member of the Surrey Police in Britain "wrongly claimed" that possessing Hamilton books was now illegal in the UK. Surrey Police were later forced to make a formal apology for the incorrect and unsubstantiated allegations made by Detective constable Simon Ledger (see: British Journal of Photography, September 2005), and admitted that no legally binding decision had been made on the work of David Hamilton.^{[citation needed]}".

The text was removed presumable due to lack of a properly formatted reference. As the text said "see: British Journal of Photography, September 2005" I tried to track this issue down. I can't find it online anywhere but I have found this preview of a British Journal of Photography article: see the third preview down: [3]. It is entitled "Police back of threat", and is dated August 31, 2005 - making it reasonable to presume it was printed in the September 2005 issue as was previously claimed at David Hamilton (photographer). The preview mentions Hamilton, the police and the allegation, though it falls short of mentioning a retraction from the police, though it's title would suggest the full article does mention a retraction. Unfortunately trying to open the link gives a 404 error. I think it is very reasonable to extrapolate that the September 2005 issue of the British Journal of Photography does in fact back up the "Police in Britain "wrongly claimed"" paragraph. In my attempts to be impartial I will try harder to find either an online copy of the article or a hard copy of the September 2005 issue of the magazine before I add this information on a police statement and retraction to the article. Freikorp (talk) 04:14, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Success. I've found a preview of the apology here: [4]. Freikorp (talk) 07:20, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reviews

I'm finding it hard to find reviews of the artistic aspect of the book. Here are two snippet previews of reviews on google books that would be useable if a full preview or hard copy were obtained. [5][6]. Freikorp (talk) 07:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]