Dodgy Certs

[planeterotica]

As a ot of you are aware there has been a lot of debate recently about forged sexual health certificates and i do not want this post to reflect in any way on the database issue that UKAP are proposing as that is another matter, but as dodgy certs has now become such an issue i think it is time to point out that using a forged cert is a criminal offence and carries a custodial sentence and once more people are made aware of this there will be less dodgy certs doing the rounds, and if producers kept copies of the certs of performers you would have all the evidence that was needed if a problem later arose, so anyone who uses dodgy certs or is thinking of doing so you should think again.

[planeterotica]

It is an offence for a performer or anyone to use dodgy certs i was not inferring that the producer could be commiting an offence.

[paul jones]

S2257 is US law, not UK law.

IIRC it requires the IDs, Proof Age, and Releases be kept but not certs. People outside the follow it as best they can because it's good for business.

UK LAW has no specific adult related record keeping requirements, but of course everyone does because no one (specifically no publishers who commission and buy content) wants to be on the wrong end of a court case re disputed ages or permissions.

Cheers

Paul

[planeterotica]

Producers in the UK are not required by law to keep copies of a persons IDs but most do as proof of age, so why not keep copies of a performers certs which surely makes sense, and not only should anyone using dodgy certs be named and shamed they should also be prosecuted as there is law in place to do this and if everone adopted this as standard procedure there would be few dodgy certs around, in the past a person only showed their certs to a fellow performer and if everyone was happy the shoot commenced but either parties certs could have been faked and it meant they had got away with it but if copies are kept they can never think that they have got away with it as it could come back to haunt them.

[jimslip]

Yes I am also confused as to exactly what piece of UK law could be invoked in the event of someone using a false cert. I would have thought that in the UK, it would be a civil action brought about between the two parties, ie the person who knowingly presented the false cert and the person with whom he or she worked with.

In the event that a person contracted a disease, they could probably accuse the other party of "Actual bodily harm" and complain to the police. In turn the police would look at you as if you'd crawled out from under a stone and basically say, "Well what do you expect if you're going to shag people without condoms, now piss off, so we can carry on watching the footy!"

Can you imaging the outcome of trying to prove that the disease was actually contracted from the person who'd had the dodgy cert? It would be a nightmare. You'd need a top barrister and a team of virologists and microbiologists to act on your behalf to pinpoint the exact time of infection (Impossible)and you in turn would have to prove that you'd had no other sexual contact with anyone else during the time of incubation of the disease (Impossible) and how would you prove this unless you'd been under lock and key for the duration?

Of course all these points would be applicable in the US and so the lawyers have great fun raking in the cash, whilst arguing these points!

My rule is to personally inspect peoples certs and always ensure they are on an original letterhead and untampered with. I also think that things are generally better than they were a few years ago, but then what do I know?

[Paul Taylor]

Yeah always important to check peoples certs.

Hell I have seen that many different ones, all where on letterheaded paper however some where typed, some where hand written, some where both, some where color, some where black and white.

Hell mine from NHS in Newcastle had a little man with his thumb up at the top of the letterhead on mine.

Trouble is alot of NHS hospitals just expect you to get the results over the phone and thats it, they think its for your won piece of mind.

When you keep coming back and they start to ask questions, thats when I started to pay for them, before then I was getting them for free until they realised I would be coming back over and over every month or at least when I had a shoot coming up.

But yes all you can do it look carefully, when you work with that many people all the ones that once looked different end up repeating themselves in other performers anyway so its rare that you see a style of cert you havent seen before on previous jobs.

But yeah I always check the letter head and the details to make sure they dont look like they are tampered, and thats nothing personal to the performers I have worked with, just being safe and I hope they did that with mine. I have never come across any fake certs in 5 years that I know of.

Paul