David Austin, assistant director of the British Board of Film Classification and one Britain’s most senior censors, has suggested that scenes of sexual imagery that bear no relation to reality will not be blocked under Clause 16 of the new Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, which is currently passing through parliament.

Austin told a Parliamentary Bill Committee: “There are examples of sexually violent material that are not caught by the Bill. There are a number of areas of violent and abusive pornography that are not caught.

“Clause 16 clearly talks in terms of realistic and explicit depiction of rape in pornography. We deal with quite a large number of pornographic works every year and have done for many years. Some of these feature clearly fictional depictions of rape and other sexual violence in which participants are clearly actors, acting to a script.

“These works may include scenes of relentless aggressive abuse, threats of physical violence with weapons and forced acts of sex.”

However Austin did reveal that the Government may amend some of the explanatory notes defining their view on what realism’ is in the context of Clause 16.

If the bill is enacted, Clause 16 will amend the extreme pornography offence currently contained within the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act of 2008, to cover the possession of scenes of “non-consensual sexual penetration”.

Meaning a prison sentence of up to three years and/or a fine for anyone caught with such images or video in their possession.