BBC News

6 September, 2005

Police investigating disorder at the time of the G8 summit have used a court order to seize TV footage from BBC Scotland and Scottish Television.

It is understood they also have a warrant to take tapes from Sky.

Police viewed the footage in advance and then took 15 tapes from the BBC offices in Edinburgh on Monday morning and 10 from STV.

Demonstrations and violent clashes over the week of the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July led to 358 arrests.

Some 10,000 officers from across the UK were drafted in as world leaders met in Perthshire.

Safety concern

The week of the summit saw running battles on Edinburgh's Princes Street, on the streets of Stirling and Bannockburn and at the summit security fence near Auchterarder.

BBC Scotland lawyer Alistair Bonnington said that the corporation objected to the breadth of material being requested.

He said: "We were successful in taking it right down to the minimum and also we managed to get the powers of search taken out of the warrant."

Mr Bonnington said there was only so much that could be done in the face of a warrant but he backed the idea of a stronger industry-wide strategy.

NUJ spokesman Paul Holleran told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: "It needs to be seen that the press is at arms-length from the state and shouldn't be seen as a body that hands over material for information to the police just willy-nilly."

Mr Holleran called on stronger criteria to protect the press in such cases.

"That's the second part of our concern, the health and safety aspect of journalists who could be seen as being used by the police," he said.