Act:As it has been stated before, the BBFC controls which films are released in the UK and what certificate they are given. However it is not the BBFC who is left to control the enforcing of the act but the local council fair trading standards officers. Due to the new 1993 amendments the time limit for prosecutions is 3 years, if the offender has not been prosecuted after 3 years no charges are enforced. Any person that is prosecuted for an offence under the act may have their sale of goods licence removed and face either a fine or a term in jail.How the act helps animals:As it has clearly been seen the act really was made to prevent the public gaining the “wrong” type of viewing material. That they may go on and put into practice, such as the James Bulcher case were 2 boys apparently re-enacted a childsplay film on a younger boy. If the boys had never seen a film such as childsplay then they may have not performed such an act. It also may stop certain acts of cruelty on animals from being performed in this country, if someone made a film where animals were treated incorrectly then it would not be published, so there would be no point in making the film as they would lose money and could be held for charges under the animal protection act 1911. The act can also stop animals from getting to distressed, as the BBFC will not pass a film in which they think an animal has suffered great distress. An example of this is in the film No Fear, No Die (a French film) which has scenes of animal cruelty and cock fighting. No animals where actually harmed in the making of the film and the cock fighting scenes were fake (or the blades were at least). There are loopholes in the act such as computer games, a game called carmageddon in which you gain points by running over people and animals. This game did have a 15 certificate but the question still remains would it have been allowed to be released if it was a film?....
