ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

8 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Oooohh how prickly is the situation? National security prickly? Public interest prickly? Defamation prickly?

You can get insurance to cover the risk of being sued, and it'll be in the context of the whole production. If you feature stolen footage of Trump romping with Russian escorts in an FSB blackmail sting, then there's an undoubted public interest case, for instance.

8 years, 5 months ago - Giulio Gobbetti

Thank you paddy for replying so quickly. I would say that there is a public interest case to be made, and that may be a solution in terms of production. However, that doesn't necessarily protect the source that committed an offence by filming - their identity could hardly be protected if the footage were to be made public so I am also wondering of the implications for them (they, by the way, came forward with the footage but not necessarely being fully aware of the risks of using it).

8 years, 5 months ago - John Lubran

Who shot the footage?

Does anyone else have rights to the footage? For example was the person who shot it paid by another to shoot under conditions that could be termed as being employed either as an employee or contract either written or substantially implied?

Is the film going to be factual?

Is the footage a product of entrapment? Entrapment may or may not be fair comment depending on the context and circumstances. Similar issues might arise with breach of privacy.

In general if the documentary is within the scope of journalism and does not misrepresent the truth or breach statutes or laws protecting minors and human rights, then in the context of fair comment and public interest secretly obtained or under cover recordings are probably legitamate.

Having said all that; the devil in these issues is in the detail. I'm sure there's a few good lawyers who work in this sort of thing who are not also are not greedy fee builders. There are now also 'direct access barristers'; cut out the middleman if there's doubt. Usually costs around a £1000. In over 70 cases I used a barrister three times and a solicitor maybe a half a dozen times. An awful lot of clarity can be gleaned from case law studies available on the Internet.

8 years, 5 months ago - John Lubran

Oh and another thing. Why do you think that the shooter committed an offence? Under Common Law an offence is not committed if an action that might otherwise be an offence, or even a crime, was taken in order to prevent or uncover a greater offence. The Common Law defence of Duress of Circumstance is an often winning, well proven and deeply entrenched 'get out if jail' card.

8 years, 5 months ago - Giulio Gobbetti

John, thank you for the points you raised. The situation in quite peculiar in itself, and that is why I think the best thing would be to check with someone who can be made aware of all the details, so thank you for the information on lawyers and barristers. That said, I will definitely also research some case studies to see if anything could apply.