A broadcaster has been fined £100,000 by Ofcom for screening graphic depictions of "extreme violence" including torture, a child murder and the dismemberment of a corpse.
The scenes, screened hours before the watershed mornings and afternoons on five days during school summer holidays last year, appeared on the Investigation Discovery channel.
Ofcom said the breaches of its programme code were "blatant". The European broadcaster, ultimately owned by the US television network Discovery Communications, has also been ordered to broadcast a statement about the regulator's ruling.
The footage featured in a documentary series about real-life murder cases called Deadly Women. Eight of the 60-minute episodes were found to have breached broadcasting rules.
In its report, published today, Ofcom said the programmes contained "prolonged and disturbing reconstructions of torture, mutilation and murder".
They included attacks on individuals with hammers, knives, electrocutions and whippings; the beating to death of a six-year old boy by his mother and her boyfriend; and the dismemberment of a corpse with a circular saw.
Ofcom said the sequences were "highly likely to have caused distress to any children in the audience".
The screenings, in August last year, indicated a failure by the broadcaster "to ensure that it had robust compliance procedures in place", said Ofcom.
Discovery has apologised "unreservedly" and accepted that it was a "significant" breach of the programme code. It said it had since improved its compliance procedures.
Source: PA Media Lawyer
