14/11/2011 Inside Out Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

Welcome to Inside Out. This week, we investigate the naturist

websites selling DVDs involving naked children. All we ask parents

and experts if they consider it the thumbs as innocent as they seem on

the cover. Some people will use it for paedophile purposes. They will

look on it as child pornography. Or so tonight, a tale of espionage.

We retrace the story of a Cormac man who was jailed for spying 100

years ago. From what I worth -- what I can gather, he was well

aware of the risks he was taking. And to the lions of Doncaster. We

find out how these big cats behave that night. If the L probably

looking at me right now as a tasty snack -- they are probably looking

There is a long tradition of naturism in this country, although

it is fair to say it is not everyone's cup of tea. We have

found out one of the country's old as publications is selling DVDs

that featured naked children. Are these naturist films or something

more sinister? We have been investigating.

Naturism in Britain is decades old. And there's nothing new about

pictures of those naturists being taken and even being sold. But how

different is it if those images are not of adults, but of naked

children? If paedophiles got hold of this material, they'd be

watching it for quite the wrong reasons. We've been investigating

if these DVDs are legal. There's a strong possibility that type of

image would be regarded as an indecent image. And if these films

should be being sold by a company right on our doorstep. We should be

able to control where it's being distributed in the UK. It should be

banned. This unassuming building is home to

a company called New Freedom Publications Ltd. And from this

small office in Goole in East Yorkshire, the company runs a

website, selling naturist DVDs. The website's affiliated to the long-

running naturist magazine Health and Efficiency. And among the

dozens of DVDs it sells, those which clearly feature young

children. With just a few clicks, these DVDs are available to buy

online. We're going to order a couple and take a look.

Each DVD costs �40. And it's obvious what material is being sold.

I've already managed to find at least half a dozen DVDs which

explicitly mention children or have pictures of them on the front cover.

So when you order this material, you're in no doubt at all what that

you're going to get is images of naked children.

All the DVDs we ordered were filmed by a company in the Czech Republic.

VOICEOVER: It is every child's dream to be at a cottage with Mum.

And the dream has come true for two little girls this weekend.

They all show naked children playing outside. But while climbing

rope ladders and coming down a water slide, their genitals are

exposed. We showed the films to Professor of Law, Richard Stone and

asked if they are indecent. courts take the view that simple

nakedness is not indecent. If the pictures are showing genitals then

that becomes more likely to be regarded as indecent. So would you

consider this DVD to be indecent? think certain bits of it,

particularly where the focus is on the genitals, could be regarded as

indecent, yes. But the test is one for either magistrates or for a

jury to decide in the end whether a particular picture is indecent or

not. This one has a water slide, the camera is at the bottom angled

upwards so you can see the young girls coming down the slide, often

with their legs apart. The coming down the slide with their legs

apart inevitably focuses on that particular area and the more that

is done, the greater the risk it is The company that made the films,

Naturist Freedom, says all the children's parents sign a contract

before filming allowing these pictures to be sold. It also sent

us a copy of this document. The company says it's from a court

appointed expert from Prague, who's watched all the footage filmed -

and certifies the DVDs legal and moral undefectiveness. It also says

it believes the footage is done in a very sensitive way. But some

who've seen the DVDs don't agree. We spoke to parents and

grandparents at a toddler group just a few miles from where these

DVDs are being distributed. All with children of their own, they

were alarmed by the films' content. We don't find any sexual

connotation to this whatsoever, it's just what you do on a sunny

day in your garden with your own children. But because there is no

say-so on who purchases these and therefore what they're used for,

there are going to be people who get a sexual kick out of this.

could be aimed at paedophiles, it could be aimed at anybody. I'm

sorry I don't think it's acceptable. It's not called for. The fact that

this has even been produced is not acceptable. I'm not sure we can

control where it has been filmed, but we can control where it is

distributed and it should be banned. When we asked the film company

Naturist Freedom about distribution, it said it only sells the films to

people who make their business selling naturist videos to other

naturists. It adds that it is quite common to share the way of life

with other naturists. For almost 60 years, British naturism has been

representing naturist groups across the country. And in recent years,

police have asked the group's research officer Malcolm Boura to

help them decide if naturist films are indecent. We asked him how

unusual it is to film naked children. That would be very

unusual, at least in part because the law is so vague that nobody

actually knows for certain what it's legal to film. I have had

conversations with quite a lot of naturist families where they've

complained bitterly that they're not allowed to have photographs -

or they don't feel they're allowed - to have photographs of their

children doing ordinary everyday childish things in the same way as

non-naturist families are. For fear of how they might be interpreted?

Yes. As an organisation, would British Naturism prefer it if these

types of DVDs weren't on sale? does raise us concerns in that the

motivation behind them is questionable. Some people will be

using it for paedophile purposes. They will be looking upon it as

being child pornography. Health and Efficiency didn't want

to speak to us on camera, but their parent company New Freedom

Publications gave us a statement. It said the company vets all DVDS

for suitability before supplying them and has rejected some that it

felt were inappropriate. It says there's nothing inherently indecent,

immoral, illegal or harmful about naturist videos. It added that

whether or not a DVD is indecent is open to interpretation and, in its

opinion, it has not sold DVDs that are indecent.

And one photo of a naked child - on show at this gallery in Gateshead -

showed images of naked children with no sexual content aren't

indecent. The photo, owned by Elton John, prompted complaints to the

police. But there were no charges and no prosecution. And one high

profile campaigner thinks there's little wrong with these naturist

DVDs either. Esther Rantzen has spent 21 years

campaigning for better child protection, after setting up the

Childline charity and helpline. But she says she's not troubled by the

sale of these images of naked children.

If I were a judge looking at this material, I think for the sake of

common sense, I would probably not ban it. I don't think the camera

work is salacious, I don't think they dwell on children's private

parts. I don't think it has a nasty feel about it. So I would allow it

for sale, I think, if I were a judge. But thank heavens I'm not a

judge because I would also know that if paedophiles got hold of

this material, they'd be watching it for quite the wrong reasons.

you think that raises problems in that it could be used for illicit

purposes? I feel very concerned about a slippery slope that ends up

with grandmothers being prevented from photographing their children

in a nativity play or mothers getting prosecuted for having

photographs of themselves in the bath with their babies. I think we

have to recognise that children aren't born with clothes on and a

naked child is not an indecent image.

But regardless of their content, there's another issue with these

DVDs. None of them has ever been shown to the British Board of Film

Classification. It told us it has passed some similar material, but

others have been cut when there has been an undue focus on naked

children in a manner that might raise concern. And what's more,

selling unclassified DVDs can be a criminal offence. If it's a

documentary, so it's a purely factual video, then it doesn't need

to have a classification. But that exception doesn't apply if the

video shows to any significant extent amongst other things the

genital areas. And if a judge and jury found them indecent, then the

punishments are even harsher. that situation, a prison sentence

of two-to-three years may well be the appropriate penalty.

But whether these DVDs break the rules is for the authorities to

decide. East Yorkshire's Trading Standards department is now

investigating if these titles should have age certificates. And

we've handed the material over to Humberside Police, for them to

decide if these DVDs of naked Coming up on Inside Out: but called

the Wild. We find out whether the lions of Doncaster or behave like

their African cousins at night. is an eerie feeling it, just us and

A few years before the start of the First World War, a man from here in

Hull was jailed in Germany for spying, but he still managed to

Molly Megson knows there was something special about her

grandfather - but it's been a as a spy. Molly Megson knows there

was something special about her grandfather, but it's been a hidden

part of her family's past. These are some photographs. He was born

in England, and his parents were German. I knew that he was

something to do with Germany, and something happened, but it was not

talked about in the family. Schultz was jailed in Germany as a

British spy 100 years ago, and managed to smuggle an extraordinary

secret message out of his prison cell. Now, Molly wants to find out

more. I would love to get to know the answers of so many things that

have happened in his life. I vaguely know about them, but nobody

seems to know any answers. Here's the starting point for her journey.

During his jail sentence, Max built an elaborate model of a boat.

was made by him in prison in Germany. What intrigues me, the

level of detail. Looking at it, getting closer, one of the minute

little holes. I can only imagine the conditions in which he would

have made it, I do not know where he would have got the materials or

tiles from. Others looking at the finals, the tiny hooks, all the way

round. Hidden in the middle of the boat was a secret message,

handwritten by Max. This is what my grandfather wrote. It is such a

wonderful thing, to have this in my hand. The model is built to scale.

With very odd and rough talks. Despise it not on account of

roughness. It is a labour of love. It is a note to the outside world,

a message in a bottle, telling him he is 2 1/2 years into his sentence.

I am an Englishman and a shipowner, residing in Hull, Yorkshire.

who was Max Schultz and why was he in a German jail? We've come to

Coltman Street, where Max was part of the German community in Hull.

Hull had a strong link with Germany. There is a strong community here.

Max was born in 1879, the son of an immigrant. By the early 20th

century, he was a successful ship dealer. This is where he lived.

This is it, behind you. This is it. This is number 82? Yes. Max made a

good living, buying and selling yachts. But tension was growing in

Europe. Relations between Germany and Britain were getting worse, so

the British Secret Service recruited him as a spy. People like

him did not just have German linguistic skills and knowledge of

Germany, but they also had naval and shipbuilding skills, that would

be able to detect accurate information. When Max died in 1924,

he'd dropped his German surname. He was to pay a heavy price for going

on a secret mission to his father's His secret almost died with him, so

how did he end up a prisoner in Hamburg? Max's story would have

been forgotten if it hadn't been for a chance discovery at this

Hamburg flea market. A shopper was browsing round the stalls when he

spotted a model boat. It was old and shabby, and the sellers had

found it on a skip. Put out for rubbish? On the shriek. -- on the

shrieked. On a container. My family are so great for, and I would like

to shake your hand. Can I give you a herd of? Thank you so much.

model was passed to a marine historian, Peter Bluhm. He

discovered it was an exact replica of a luxury German ship, the

Imperator, the largest liner in the world, launched in Hamburg in 1913.

During restoration work, he removed the front funnel and made an

astonishing find. I began to put down the first formal, and I saw

paper. Like this size. In my opinion, it was a special model,

and he was a special man. How lucky we are that you found it. If you

find it a model I notice, you want to know more and more. You want to

know, what is that for? What has he done? Peter Bluhm has investigated

Max's spying mission. Max came here in 1911 to get information about

Germany's latest invention, a new engine for submarines. He was

interested in the engine, the submarine boats. The engineers from

the shipyard found a new system, so that the engine is not so loud.

was searching for military secrets, but it was dangerous, and it was

not going to We're at Hamburg railway station to meet Barbara,

one of Molly's cousins, who's researched the story. She is here!

Barbara lives in Germany. She and Molly have only met once before.

She says Max recruited two Germans to help him get naval plans, but he

knew he was being followed. He made up his mind to leave Germany, but

it was too late. Max was arrested outside the railway station, and

sentenced as a spy. He was well aware of the risk that he was

taking. And of the consequences of the fact that, if he was caught, he

was going to be a life of his family. He was to spend the next

seven years in jail, and this is where he ended up, the prison where

he wrote his secret message. This is Fuhlsbuttlel jail, on the

outskirts of Hamburg. Molly's reached the end of her journey.

We're in an old cell. Max's would have been much smaller. He spent

the whole of his sentence in solitary confinement. We read that

he was incarcerated for seven years, and you pass that it and read on.

This is it, this is the seven years. It is a culmination of everything

we knew about him, it is bringing to life the story. It has all been

a better the revelation. A moving Last year, we brought you the story

of lions that were brought from a dilapidated Romanian Suter

Doncaster. Thousands of visitors have seen them at their new home at

the Yorkshire Wildlife Park, but no-one has seen what they get up to

when they're at their most active, at night. Until now, that is, when

we sent our own night owl Mike Dilger to investigate.

That's it, it's just after 5pm and the last of the visitors have gone,

but for the animals here, life continues, but without the gaze of

For most of the day, these lions have been doing what most cats do,

and that's been getting in plenty of sleep. Although lions can be

active at any time, research in the wild shows that they have peaks of

activity at dusk and dawn, what's known as being crepuscular, and we

know that out in Africa, lions do But few have ever studied what

captive lions do when its dark, and I'd like to know whether the years

spent behind bars in Romania have dulled their wild streak. You live

here, you hear them all the time. They wake me up, 2am, 3am, which is

great! It is fantastic to wake up to a Lions they get up to something,

but what, your guess is as good as mine. Top-quality beef! The

Doncaster lions are kept in three separate prides, which mirrors

their family groups in Romania. There's a definite hierarchy, and

just like any family, there are plenty of times when they seem to

be rubbing each other up the wrong Now, lions might be the most social

of the big cats, but interpreting their behaviour is no easy task. So

it's time to call in someone who spends much of her time studying

these animals out in the African savannah. Dusk is just around the

corner, any idea what we will see? Normally, roaring. We have already

heard bits and pieces, and now that it is getting dusk, early morning,

that is when they will roll, the air is Calder, so it is lighter,

and the sound will travel a lot further, up to eight kilometres.

They all going out once. They are letting each other know, we are

here, how are you? People think of the line as an animal that is

common across Africa, but they are struggling at the moment. Yes, and

people are not aware of their plight. We have seen a decline

since the mid- 70s of 80 to 90%, a huge decline. This is how we're

going to film the lions. It will be so dark, normal cameras will not be

able to cope. But we have got our hands on this piece of equipment.

This is an image intensifier, which takes every scrap of light from the

atmosphere, from the moon and the stars, which means, even though

physically we cannot see a thing, the camera should be able to record

Rae and myself set up camp close to the lion enclosures, waiting for

the action to unfold on our monitor. It is eyrie, just us and them. I

have total faith in the fences behind me. But rather than during

the day, when they are largely to sleep, they are much more active at

night, and they are probably looking at me right now, like I am

a tasty snack. They get a lot of stick for being lazy, but really, I

like to think of it, they are just energy efficient, intelligent. On

average, 21 hours a day, sleep, which is a lot, but when they are

exerting their energy, they are to link energetic behaviour, defending

their territory, patrolling huge territories, hunting, which could

go on for hours, and planed. If you can sleep, you might as well make

the most of it, conserve your energy for when you have to exerted.

We are seeing a lion conserving his energy! With the good folk of

Doncaster safely tucked up in their beds, it seems the lions have also

decided to call it a day. But just as we're beginning to lose hope, it

all starts kicking off. All of a seven, activity. They are chasing.

The two females. The three Lionesses together. Hitting each

other around the head. I can confirm that these Lions do not

sleep all night. Despite the darkness, these night-vision shots

are certainly illuminating, but it's time to put our lions to the

test. We are going to try experiment. We have got some

recordings of lions from Zimbabwe, and we will play them and see what

reaction they get from these three prides. We have no idea whatsoever

what will happen. Let's give it a go. The plan is to see how the

Doncaster lions react to the sound of another new pride of five lions.

Will they treat them as friend or foe? This has brought the Lions'

right up to the fence. They are about 20 metres away, they are not

responding, but they are fascinated. They are figuring it out. This is

what we want to see, territorial defence. Who argue, where are you

coming from? They are always patrolling. If the fences were down,

there would have lions here. They would be coming up to the speakers.

Studies in Africa have shown that lions can actually count. They'll

listen to the roars of a new pride and work out whether the numbers

are in their favour. Too many lions, and it's time to quietly melt away,

but if there's more of you, there's no need to intimidated. And having

done their sums, the Doncaster That is probably them now,

assessing. They have not ruled for a while, let's give it some, let's

tell them we are coming. Brilliant. They were not sure for five minutes,

then they said, it is time to reassert our dominance. Looking at

these images, it is difficult to tell we are in Doncaster! Abedin a

Samara all the Serengeti! I and so impressed. What have I learned

about the Lions? They do not sleep all night. They run around a lot

and they make an awful lot of noise. And, at fax to this analysis, there

is the most enormous amount going on in terms of hierarchy, play,

fighting, it is just a jungle out If you want to contact us about any

of tonight's stories, you can do through our Facebook page or

through Twitter. That is all from here in Hull. Join us next week. We