Vice squad officers are being offered a sneak preview of a festival of erotica.

Organisers of Erotica 2002 will let police and council officials vet topless female models, raunchy underwear and X-rated combat sport.

They want to avoid a repetition of last year's festival, when vice squad officers stopped a stage show because it was deemed too rude.

On Friday council officials banned the organisers from using a 10-feet python in the show.

Comply with demands

Organisers say police and officials from Hammersmith and Fulham Council have been invited to see parts of the show in private before it opens to the public at London's Olympia on Friday.

Savvas Christodoulou, managing director of Erotica 2002, said: "We are giving the vice squad and the council our full co-operation as ever.

"I am confident that there is nothing in the show that will need to be changed in any way shape or form.

"But should they want to make any alterations we will comply with their demands."

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Club and Vice Squad told BBC News Online officers will "view the exhibition to ensure it doesn't contravene obscenity laws" this weekend.

Tantric sex

About 60,000 people are expected to visit the event which is described as the biggest adult lifestyle fair in the world.

Among the 220 exhibitors there are tantric sex tutors who will be on hand to teach couples the mystic art of "non-tactile awareness".

The festival is now in its seventh year and is described by organisers as an "annual celebration of love and all that's erotic".

Python 'devastated'

The banned Burmese python - called Ben - was due to take to the stage with his belly dancer owner when the authorities stepped in.

They demanded organisers apply for a special "pet performance licence" for the three-times daily show.

Solariss Kantaris, who performs under the name Cleopatra, said: "Ben is devastated, he loves to perform and now he can't.

"I have never heard such nonsense from the council before."