UK- THE first screening of a porn movie in a Liverpool public cinema was postponed last week.

Special measures had to be introduced before the controversial film Deep Throat, www.xxxdeepthroat.com, could be shown at the Fact arts centre in Wood Street.

Scheduled screenings of the 1970s movie, starring the late Linda Lovelace have been shelved after calls for a report, and the city licensing committee will now decide on an alternate date of July 20.

A council spokesman said: “It may involve insisting this is the only film shown in the complex on a set day, to ensure no children are in the vicinity.”

The R18 certificate requiresa stipulated yes or no decision.

Darren Newsham, manager of City Screen, franchise company for the three cinema screens, said: “Deep Throat is as much a piece of cinematic history as well as the most notorious porn film ever made.

“We are not expecting to attract the dirty mac brigade.”

Fact has already shown the documentary follow-up to the movie, Inside Deep Throat. Two hundred people turned up for that on June 24.

Two new prints of Deep Throat have been shown in Brighton and Edinburgh.

In Brighton, permission was unconditionally granted, wheras in Edinburgh patrons had to have ID cards and join a special club for the night, after complaints by anti-porn campaigners.

Darren Newsham said: “We are not expecting a problem in Liverpool. What we are involved in is a matter of council procedure.

The last time councillors called in a movie for special license scrutiny was for Spider-Man in 2002 after a certificate change.

Nine years earlier, they met to consider Jurassic Park because it might scare chidren. In both cases, screening permission was granted.