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Scotland Yard gains hours of unbroadcast material of August riots after serving court orders The BBC, ITN and Sky News have handed hundreds of hours of unbroadcast footage of the August riots to police after being served with court orders by Scotland Yard. The broadcasters were forced to hand over raw footage of the riots after the Metropolitan police obtained a production order earlier this month under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The Daily Telegraph is also understood to have disclosed material to the police after being served with a production order. Scotland Yard has put sustained pressure on all media groups to reveal video and picture evidence of the riots since the disorder across England seven weeks ago. “It is very very rare that we are served with a court order to hand over footage like this,” said a senior insider at one of the broadcasters. “We don’t hand over material willy-nilly because it compromises the security of our journalists on the streets. Clearly we don’t want them being seen as an evidence-gathering arm of the police.” The major news broadcasters are in the process of handing over hundreds of hours of footage to the police. The BBC, ITN and Sky News were issued with a wide-ranging order that forced the disclosure of “any broadcast or unbroadcast video or still pictures of the recent unrest in London”. Police are understood to have temporarily halted attempts to obtain footage from newspapers, except the Daily Telegraph, which is understood to have complied with a court order in early September. “Police requests for BBC untransmitted material are dealt through our legal department, regardless of the subject matter,” said a spokeswoman for the BBC. “We require requests for untransmitted material to be made through the courts. A production order requiring footage of the riots was served on the BBC and a court agreed that the material should be supplied.” In deciding whether to grant a production order, judges are supposed to weigh the interest of the police in obtaining evidence with the public interest in a free press. An ITN spokesman said: “ITN’s policy is that we do not release unbroadcast material to police. On some occasions when the police apply to a judge for a court order to force the release of such material, we have challenged the police’s application.” Hundreds of police officers are working through about 40,000 hours of CCTV footage in stations across the country. In London, Met officers are believed to be studying more than 20,000 hours of video at 30 viewing facilities. A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan police said: “The police are identifying people through pictures, CCTV and through the media to ensure that people are brought to justice. We would ask the media to work with the police to ensure that happens.” Sky News had not returned a request for comment at the time of publication. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . TV news BBC ITN Television industry Daily Telegraph Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers UK riots Police Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk