BBC and ITN say police must follow proper procedure of obtaining court order to avoid compromise of editorial standards

The BBC and ITN have responded to David Cameron's call for them to immediately hand over unused TV footage of rioters by arguing that the proper procedure of the police obtaining a court order must be followed.

Earlier on Thursday the prime minister told MPs that the media has a "responsibility" to immediately release footage to help police track down and punish those responsible for four nights of rioting in cities across England.

Liberal Democrat MP John Leech asked the prime minster during an emergency Commons session whether he would "encourage media organisations to immediately release footage".

"I will certainly do that," Cameron responded. "Everyone has a responsibility. Media organisations have a responsibility too, and I hope they will act on it."

Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 an order must be obtained from a judge to obtain unpublished material such as film and pictures. The judge is supposed to weigh the interest of the police in obtaining evidence with the public interest in a free press.

ITN, which produces news programmes for ITV and Channel 4, said that despite the drive to swiftly identify looters the government cannot run roughshod over standard legal practice.

"We expect any request will come from the police," said a spokeswoman for ITN. "When that happens, we will deal with it as per our established practice for handing over unbroadcasted material."

A BBC spokeswoman added: "We have standard processes in place to deal with requests from the police through our litigation department, regardless of the subject matter. Any request would need to be dealt with by the courts."

Fran Unsworth, the BBC's head of newsgathering, said on Wednesday that the corporation would not hand over any footage without a court order.

"It's a matter of principle for us, we don't just hand over our rushes [raw footage] to the police without them going through a proper process which is via the courts," she said in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Media Show. "It doesn't really matter what the nature of the offences are – if we went down that road of making judgments of the nature of the offences, that would compromise our editorial standards."

Unsworth was then asked whether the fact that the footage showed "transparent criminality" of looting should change the BBC's position.

"It is a matter for a court to decide that, not for us to decide … for a court to decide whether it is criminal or not," she replied. "If [the police] come up with a court order we will probably hand [footage] over because that's the process and then the courts will decide whether its criminal activity or not. But we are not in a position to prejudge that."

John Ryley, head of Sky News, said: "It's business as usual. Our standard policy remains in place and we will of course co-operate with any court orders."

The Newspaper Society, which represents regional newspapers, echoed the views of broadcasters.

A spokesman said: "The police cannot just demand editorial material nor do editors have automatically to comply with police requests. If the police are asking for unpublished material, then newspaper editors may well refuse to supply any material unless ordered to do so by a court, under the procedure laid down by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Pace). If the police want to obtain and view journalistic material, including photographs or audiovisual material, in order to investigate serious offences, then the police must apply to the court and ask a judge to make a production order."

He added: "The media organisation is entitled to oppose the police application. In practice, the police have all too often successfully applied for orders, but there have been occasions where judges have refused to grant the police application.

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