Distributors have halted the sale in Britain of the video game Law and Order: Double or Nothing, following complaints from Denise Fergus, the mother of the murdered toddler James Bulger, that it appeared to include a CCTV image of her son being abducted.

The move comes as, for the first time in 10 years, a video game has been banned from British shops on the ground that it encourages extreme violence and "casual sadism".

Manhunt 2 has been made illegal to sell by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) for its "unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying".

The BBFC said of Manhunt 2 that the game "constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing".