The Centre For Social Cohesion

Having obviously failed to find any evidence for such an outrageous charge and having failed in their attempt to pursue the matter through the broadcasting regulator Ofcom (the police now entering into television criticism) the CPS and West Midlands Police simply libelled the programme-makers by saying that the views of the preachers in the programme had somehow been misleadingly edited and that the broadcast risked undermining 'community cohesion.'

Since the CPS and police claims were shown to be defamatory and utterly unsubstantiated, Channel 4 rightly sued for libel. The success of this strategy and the complete vindication today of Channel 4 and the Dispatches team is a tremendous success in the war against the hate-preachers and the ludicrous culture of political correctness in Britain which has allowed such hate to flourish.

When this case first arose there were two immediate deleterious effects. One was that important footage taken of hate-preaching in this country was somehow tarnished. Having had doubts cast on its authenticity, it was as though no such hate-speech could possibly be uttered in a British mosque - a notion that only added to the awful complacency of many of the British authorities. Secondly, the realisation emerged that there were elements within the British police for whom the task of shooting the messenger was more important than the task of fighting the fire. The fact that a section of the British police force honestly thought that the problem was Channel 4 and not the hate-preachers shows the astonishing culture which has emerged in the police force in recent years. It is not the job of the police to become television critics, and it should not be their role to attempt to enforce some ludicrously presumptous PC (pardon the pun) agenda.

If the CPS and the West Midlands Police wanted to claw back any respectability they would now get back to doing what they should have done more than a year ago, and instead of pursuing brave and principled programme-makers, should consider going after the people who are actually undermining 'community cohesion.' Perhaps they will look into the original problem and finally pursue some of those who were shown on Dispatches calling for the murder of other British citizens. It might not salvage the CPS and West Midlands Police's reputation overnight, but it would certainly help start the process.