Child gets Saw 3D advert banned

The advert can now only be shown after the watershed

A TV trailer advertising the film Saw 3D has been banned after a 10-year-old complained that it was "distressing" and "inappropriately scheduled".

It began with a screaming man reaching towards the screen with a bloodied hand and featured images of saw blades.

The unnamed child saw the advert at 2029 GMT in a break during The Gadget Show on Channel Five.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it was "likely to cause distress to young children".

Advertising services organisation Clearcast had originally cleared the advert to be shown after 1930 GMT.

It said that anyone watching TV later than that would know that it was for a film trailer and clearly based in fantasy.

But the ASA upheld the child's complaint.

It said images in the advert which depicted people in a cinema "linked the scenes from the film with a recognisably real situation".

These include scenes which showed cinema-goers "suddenly trapped by metal restraints and where the figure reached out and pulled a cinema-goer back towards the screen", the ASA said.

"We considered it was therefore likely to cause distress to young children who might not make a clear distinction between the scenes from the film and the scenes in the cinema."

It said a post-1930 GMT restriction was "not sufficient" and ruled the advert must not be be broadcast again in its current form before 2100 GMT.