School bullies 'imitating violent films'

Violent films are fuelling school bullying, Oscar-winning British producer David Puttnam warns today.

At the Anti-Bullying Alliance conference in London, Lord Puttnam is set to claim that children are imitating the aggression they see in films. He wants other movie-makers to "think about the impact of their work on broader society".

The Labour peer, who produced-The Killing Fields and Chariots Of Fire, adds: " Movies ... allow actions to become divorced from consequences.

"Sensation has come to eclipse almost everything: explosions that miraculously do not kill ... shootings that manage to create victims without widows or orphans."

His warning comes after the death this month of Nathan Jones, 12, who is believed to have hanged himself after being bullied at school in Harold Hill, Essex.