British TV stations will not have to share unbroadcast footage taken during the evictions of Irish Travellers at Dale Farm last year, the High Court in London has ordered.
The BBC, ITN and Sky News had appealed a decision by a lower court to have over 100 hours of footage handed over to Essex police following the October evictions.
In a written judgment, Mr Justice David Eady accepted that there was a real public interest in seeing that the police traced people who had been involved in public disorder.
However, that interest had to be weighed against the rights to freedom of expression enjoyed by the press under article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Essex police had to show, Mr Justice Eady added, that the “degree of interference” to the operations of the press and the wide scope of the order for footage was “necessary and proportionate”.
The judge’s decision was welcomed by the broadcasters, with ITN chief executive John Hardie describing it as a “landmark decision” that recognised the separate roles of the police and the press.
