Undercover Mosque makers to sue West Midlands Police
The Guardian reports the excellent news that Channel 4’s Dispatches editor Kevin Sutcliffe and Hardcash Productions, makers of Undercover Mosque, have issued libel proceedings against the West Midlands Police.
The documentary exposed extremist preachers in the West Midlands calling for homosexuals to be killed, preaching jihad, and generally spouting their own peculiar brand of demented medieval bullshit. The police, having determined that no crime had been committed by the preachers (something which the documentary makers did not allege), decided instead to try to prosecute the broadcasters, accusing them of distortion and misrepresentation.
The West Midlands Police appeared be trying to ingratiate itself with the local Muslim community, the result being this most egregious example of gesture policing.
Ofcom investigated the police complaints, and completely exonerated the broadcasters on all charges.
Channel 4 is supporting the libel suit:
The statements made by both the West Midlands Police and the CPS were completely unfounded and seriously damaging to the reputation of the programme makers.
We fully support this libel action as we feel that it is the only way to vindicate their reputations and to prove this was a responsible piece of public interest journalism. These unfounded allegations brought into question Channel 4’s standards of investigative journalism and a vindication for the programme team will be a vindication for Dispatches
The broadcaster also released a statement on behalf of co-claimants, David Henshaw, Andrew Smith and John Moratiel, from Hardcash Production:
The statements made by both the West Midlands Police and the CPS were completely unfounded and seriously damaging to our reputation. We feel the only way to set the record straight once and for all is to pursue this matter through a libel action.
It’s good to get these things out in the open.
Here’s a 20-second clip from the doc, featuring Abu Usama preaching the lurve:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftNxbnr9kiI[/youtube]
From my experience, the killing of homosexuals is a belief held by most muslims, not just extremist preaching eejits
Absolutely. The WMP should be made to pay (perhaps not money, that’s the taxpayer’s) but some recompense for being a bunch of arseholes.
[…] makers of the programme, it should come as no surprise that they are now pursuing a libel claim (via) against West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. “The statements made by both […]
I told that if a Muslim changes sex and has a sex change then they are no longer perscuted for being homosexual!
Incitement to murder is criminal and should be treated as such. A Trojan Horse has been allowed into our country without any reference to the native people of the country (Scots, Welsh and English).
This betrayal has been fundamentally undemocratic When the Politicians and employers have turned out country into a version of the Balkans, they will run away to their haven’s and leave us to fight the poison they brought here.