FORCE'S COSTLY CLIMBDOWN OVER MOSQUE PROGRAMME

15-05-2008

West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have been forced to make an apology in the High Court after falsely accusing the producers of Channel 4’s “Undercover Mosque” documentary – filmed in Birmingham - of distorting the facts. The cost to the public purse will be more than £100,000.

The Police and the CPS will issue a statement later today admitting they libelled Hardcash Productions which made the programme.

They’ll acknowledge that there’s “no evidence that the broadcaster or programme makers had misled the audience or that the programme was likely to encourage or incite criminal activity.”

Police were originally called in to investigate comments made at the Green Lane mosque, in Small Heath, after footage revealed preachers calling for the murder of non-Muslims and suggesting the same fate should be visited upon gay people (see link here).

Last August, it was decided the mosque had no case to answer and instead the programme was reorted to the TV regulator Ofcom on the grounds that it had undermined community relations and misrepresented the findings of its undercover filming.

Ofcom threw out the complaint, pointing out that by exposing Islamic extremism the programme was “uncovering matters of important public interest”.

What’s more, “the broadcaster had accurately represented the material it had gathered and dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context.”

In the aftermath of that verdict, West Midlands Police was accused by Channel 4 of giving "legitimacy to people preaching a message of hate to British citizens" (see link here).

The Force refused to apologise, leading to the High Court hearing, in which their weak-minded political correctness has been exposed – although, of course, it’s the taxpayer who’ll pick up the bill for their arrogance.

Their full statement will be issued today at http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/

For now, a spokesman confirmed, “we have paid a sum agreed with the programme makers into a charity of their choice.”