The BBC, Sky News and ITN News won’t have to give the police unaired footage of 2011 eviction, Journalism.co.uk reported.
As we wrote in March, the three UK outlets were ordered to provide the police their footage of the eviction of residents of Dale Farm, “Britain’s biggest illegal travellers’ camp.”
In this recent ruling, the High Court ruled that this order failed to meet the “burden” in giving “evidence as to (i) what the footage sought is likely to reveal, (ii) how important such evidence would be to carrying out the investigation and (iii) why it is necessary and proportionate to order the intrusion by reference to other potential sources of information,” according to Journalism.co.uk.
ITN News’ CEO John Hardie described the original court order as a “fishing expedition” and said that the May 17 rejection of the order helps show the independence of journalists. Likewise, the BBC’s Fran Unsworth called the ruling “significant” for its assurances of independence.