Glossary
Section 3
The seizure power. No defendant, no jury, and the stock is destroyed anyway.
Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 allows a magistrate to issue a warrant to seize material and order it forfeited.
The distinction from the main DPP list matters. A DPP-listed title could put the dealer personally in the dock. A Section 3 title could not, but the police could still take the tapes and a magistrate could still order them destroyed, with nobody ever charged and no trial to win.
For a distributor this was frequently the worse outcome: an entire catalogue could disappear with no opportunity to defend it.
Around 82 titles circulated on the Section 3 list. Its membership is less reliably recorded than the DPP 72, and the versions in circulation online disagree with each other.
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