A civil servant is being prosecuted for writing horror porn about Girls Aloud.

The 35-year-old’s 12-page blog, headlined ‘Girls (Scream) Aloud’, allegedly describes the kidnap, mutilation, rape and murder of band members Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh.

The case is significant because the man is being prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, which is normally used against publishers of images. This time, though, it’s the written word that’s being investigated under the old “deprave and corrupt” criteria. As the Independent reports:

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said it was unusual to see a prosecution brought under which did not involve pornographic images in magazines or DVDs. She said: “The vast majority of prosecutions brought under the Obscene Publications Act have related to images; be they photographs, computer-generated images or videos. It is very unusual to be prosecuted for a case involving the written word.”

Somehow I doubt the story in question has any literary merit, but if the man is convicted it’s an important precedent. “Deprave and corrupt” is open to interpretation – I can think of a few passages from American Psycho (or come to think of it, the most recent Christopher Brookmyre novel) that could easily fit those criteria.

[I shudder to think what kind of traffic this post is going to get from Google…]