CASE NUMBER: 10/2006 – BOLTT & OTHERS VS etv – VIOLENCE

Complaint about programme “Fear factor” during which a woman participant was injured while being dragged, zigzag style, on sand by 4×4 vehicle.  Tribunal found that there was sufficient warning to parents and children by showing a PG icon and a written warning at the start and end of the programme not to attempt an imitation of the stunts. The participants voluntarily accepted the risk of injury.  It was for the courts and not the BCCSA to decide whether the bounds of “volenti non fit iniuria” were overstepped.  The test of what is offensive to public morals was restated, namely as that what the community can tolerate, not that what is offensive to the individual viewer.  Clause 15 of the Code relating to violence to women found not to be applicable as the risk of violence was voluntarily accepted and men were also exposed to the same violence.  This was also not a case of sanctioning, promoting or glamorizing violence to women.  The violence was not gratuitous if this event was to be compared to a rugby match or boxing bout in which women also partake these days.  No contravention of Code was found and the  complaints were not upheld.