Ben Dover

Ben Dover
Born	Simon James Honey (1956-05-23) 23 May 1956 Sittingbourne, Kent, England
Other names	Ben Dover, Steve Perry, Lindsay Honey
Partner	Linzi Drew
Website	http://www.ben-dover.com/

Simon James Honey (born 23 May 1956 in Sittingbourne, Kent), better known as Ben Dover, is an English pornographic actor, director and producer. He has also worked under an array of other pseudonyms including Lyndsay Honey and Steve Perry.

Biography

Early Days in the adult film industry

Honey attended Borden Grammar School in his hometown of Sittingbourne in Kent. After getting expelled from school in 1973, he moved to Newquay where he got a job playing in a band for the summer season and as a children's entertainer called "Uncle Simon". In 1978 Honey responded to an advert for models in The Stage, which turned out to be Private Magazine. Honey was getting paid £150 a day, which he admitted was subsidising his failing career as a musician, under the pseudonym Lindsay Honey (taking his partner, porn star Linzi Drew's birth name). He had previously been the drummer in Artful Dodger and joined Ian Mitchell's post-Bay City Rollers band The Ian Mitchell Band in May 1979, who despite not finding success in the UK or US, released 3 studio albums and toured extensively across Europe and Asia. After moving from drums to keyboard and despite a minor UK hit with "Small Ads" in April 1981 and changing their name to La Rox, the band split up in 1982. Honey has also claimed to have worked as a male stripper under the pseudonym of "Hot Rod" (due to his apparent likeness to Rod Stewart at the time), a cabaret singer under the pseudonym "Steve Jackson" and as a photographer for Escort Magazine under the pseudonym "Brian Wilson" (after the Beach Boys singer).

In 1979 Honey starting working for Videx Ltd, a production company based in Wimbledon set up by Mike Freeman, as a photographer and actor. Following a court case involving the film "Sex Slave", the company entered voluntary liquidation in 1983 to avoid a potential four year prison sentence. Despite effectively being put out of business, both Freeman and Honey were found not guilty.

With the aid of his partner Drew, Honey took the Videx equipment and mail order list to set up his own mail order business, Stephanie Perry - the female equivalent of his pseudonym Steve Perry. The pair were jailed in 1992 for "publishing obscene material for gain" and "being in possession of obscene material" following a sting operation in which an undercover police officer joined the companies mailing list and over a period of more than a year regularly bought videos to ensure that the operation was "an on-going tax free profitable business". Drew was sentenced to four months, which she served at Holloway Prison and Drake Hall, Staffordshire, whilst Honey was sentenced to nine months, which he served at Brixton Prison before being transferred after five weeks to Send, Surrey. The subject was something which they openly talked about in a BBC Open Space documentary entitled More Sex Please, We're British[1](1993). This documentary, which discussed liberalisation of censorship laws, was made by Isobel Koprowski, the former editor of Forum magazine.

After getting out of prison, Honey was commissioned to work on the first feature length videos for Private who had only previously produced magazines, and directed their first seven films where he took on the new pseudonym Steve Perry.

Ben Dover Series

In 1995 Drew became pregnant with Tyger Drew-Honey and left the porn industry. Honey started production of a new gonzo style series in Summer 1995 under the new pseudonym of Ben Dover, a name which was influenced by a title from John Stagliano's Buttman series. He directed, produced and starred in the series between 1995 and 2008 along with actors including Mario and Pascal White, and in 1997 won the Breakthrough Award for the series at the AVN awards. He also won AVN's Best Gonzo Award twice, in 2000 for Ben Dover's End Games and in 2002 for Ben Dover's The Booty Bandit.

Upon original release in the United States, Honey's films were edited by VCA Pictures to exclude the more graphic contents of the original. In 2002, Honey was facing issues with VCA, who had been taken over by Hustler and decided to concentrate on the market in England instead. It wasn't until 2004 that he again attempted US distribution for his films and signed a deal with Kick Ass Pictures. He began producing the Ben Dover's Kick Ass Anal Adventures series, of which there have been five installments.

Honey was included in Larry Flynt's Hustler's Top 50 Most Influential People In Porn list, printed in the January 1999 issue. He also has a line of adult toys bearing his moniker: The Ben Dover Signature line, which produces, among other products, The Ben Dover Realistic Penis and The Ben Dover Anal Kit. In 2006, he won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the UK Adult Film Awards, which he co-presented with Kristyn Halborg, Kelly Stafford and friend and co-star Pascal White. In 2008 Honey attended the UK Adult Film Awards once more, representing Television X and Red Hot TV along with Linsey Dawn Mckenzie and other British adult film stars. Television X has shown some of his most recent projects such as St Teenycums which won Best Script at the UK Adult Film Awards 2008. In 2011, he was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame.

Both Honey and Drew are referenced in Irvine Welsh's Novel Porno (2002) - in which much of the dialogue is in Scots vernacular - as being present at the Cannes Adult Film Festival, where Welsh's film-makers exhibit their final product. Welsh's character 'Juice' Terry Lawson, the star of adult film they have made, upon hearing that Ben Dover will be there, says 'guid films'.

Other projects

As well as his pornographic works, Honey has acted in two mainstream feature films, the horror/thriller, Deadly Intruder (1985), for which he also provided the incidental music, and the drama Last Resort (2000), in which he played a low budget pornography producer. He performed his one-man show Innocent ‘Til Proven Filthy at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

He has also performed as a musician on various projects:

• He was the keyboardist on La Rox's 1982 single "Can I Bring You Love"/"Photograph (It Doesn't Matter)".
• He was the keyboardist on Bachelor of Hearts' 1983 album On the Boulevard, as well as some live performances of the period.
• He was the drummer on the Ian Mitchell Band's 1980 album Goin' Crazy.
• He was the drummer and pianist on the Ian Mitchell Band's 1979 album 'Lonely Nites.

In September 2009, he featured on the BBC Four programme Rich Man Poor Man: Ben Dover Straightens, where he attempted to search for personal fulfilment in his life and be taken seriously by making a break in mainstream acting.

In 2010, he was offered a role in the British comedy film On the Ropes (2011 film). The director (Mark Noyce) was reported to be "extremely impressed" with Lindsay's acting skills and professionalism and would consider casting Lindsay for future projects.

Speculative Invoicing/Copyright Infringement Case

In 2008, Honey along with Optime Strategies Ltd (who trade as Ben Dover Productions) commercial director Julian Becker set up Golden Eye (International) Ltd (named after Honey's mansion in Hersham, Surrey which was put up for sale after splitting with his wife later sold in November 2011) to distribute Ben Dover Productions films and claims to be the "holder of numerous film copyrights". The company was involved in a campaign of "speculative invoicing", where they sent out letters to alleged copyright violaters demanding a payment of £700 or face court action. The company had paid for a list of alleged file-sharers identities, and retained the services of Tilly Bailey & Irvine to pursue the alleged copyright infringers for compensation, using what it claims to be "bespoke technology which captures the irrefutable evidence of the perpetrators". It was revealed that this system was targeting many innocent individuals, and that the speculative invoicing relied on the embarrassment of those targeted agreeing to the fine to avoid the threatened court action, regardless of whether they were guilty or not. Following adverse public and press reaction, Tilly Bailey & Irvine abandoned the practise and accepted a £2800 fine from the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Without the aid of solicitors, Golden Eye (International) Ltd continued the practise of speculatively invoicing those they claim have "infringed their copyrights".

In 2011 the company lost a court case against an internet user who had allegedly illegally downloaded the Ben Dover film "Fancy An Indian?" and were themselves accused of breaching the Copyright Designs and Patents Act and Civil Procedure Rules when issuing the claims.

Golden Eye (International) Ltd had attempted to get the case to be tried in a County Court, but when it was confirmed it would need to be tried at the London Patents County Court, the company tried to pull out of the case. Judge Birss QC highlighted similarities between this and a previous case involving Media CAT Ltd and lawyers ACS:Law who unsuccessfully tried to sue 27 individuals for alleged copyright infringement, as Media CAT Ltd were not the rights holders to the copyrighted material in question and led to ACS:Law ceasing to trade.

In order for the case to progress, the actual copyright holder Optime Strategies Ltd (trading as Ben Dover Productions), would have to join Golden Eye (International) Ltd and "potentially put themselves at risk of becoming liable for a Wasted Costs claim if the case were to fail like ACS:Law's did".

On 9 March 2012, Golden Eye (International) Ltd went to court again in an attempt to obtain the details of roughly 9000 IP addresses from O2 (UK) in order to service further "speculative invoicing" letters to alleged copyright infringers. The company were given a week to respond to "expert evidence" given by statutory consumer organisation Consumer Focus, who questioned the companies ability to connect an IP address with the account holder, the companies role in relation to the copyrights involved and the amount being demanded, which they claim is "far and above the likely actual damages".

Partial filmography

• Ben Dover In London (1994)
• Ben Dover's Ben Behaving Badly (1996)
• Ben Dover's British Anal Invasion (1997)
• Ben Dover's Spicy Girls (1999)
• Ben Dover's Porno Groupies (1999)
• Ben Dover's Cheek Mates (2000)
• Ben Dover's Posh Birds (2001)
• Ben Dover's Essex Girls (2002)
• Ben Dover's Soccer Sluts (2003)
• Ben Dover Does The Boob Cruise (2004)
• Ben Dover's The Girlie Show (2005)
• Ben Dover's Pussy Galore (2006)
• Ben Dover's Yummy Mummies (2009)
• Killer Bitch (2010)
• On the Ropes (2011 film)

See also

• List of British pornographic actors

External links

• Official website
• Goldeneye (International) Ltd
• Ben Dover at IMDb
• Ben Dover at the Internet Adult Film Database
• Ben Dover as "Steve Perry" at Adult Film Database