4B Crime : Descriptions or Demonstrations of Criminal Techniques
Descriptions or demonstrations of criminal techniques containing essential details that could enable the commission of a crime should not be included unless editorially justified.
- This rule is more likely to apply to those crimes that involve generally unknown methods and techniques, that members of the viewing public would be unlikely to be aware of e.g. how to commit ingenious types of fraud.
- Even in programmes the very subject of which is to examine these types of crime in detail, it will not normally be necessary to show each and every step and technique involved in the commission of the offence. In those rare cases where it is, thus potentially enabling criminally inclined viewers to copy such behaviour, there should be strong editorial justification
e.g. it might be essential to show all the elements of a crime in order for viewers
to be able to understand it properly and, thereby, be able to guard against such crime themselves.