Photojournalist resists police calls for for Rotherham rioter pictures

A photojournalist has resisted calls for by police at hand over pictures of rioters over fears it might put him and different colleagues at risk and infringe media freedom.

Investigators at South Yorkshire Police (SYP) have mentioned they had been contemplating making use of for a court docket order to power north-west based mostly freelancer Joel Goodman to reveal photographs of the dysfunction in Rotherham exterior a resort housing asylum seekers.

Mr Goodman mentioned it will injury belief if journalists had been seen to be appearing within the pursuits of the police, whereas the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) mentioned makes an attempt to “strong-arm” reporters had been “an affront to media freedom”.

The power mentioned it revered these considerations, including its precedence was figuring out these answerable for the dysfunction.

Mr Goodman covers a variety of stories in his pictures and famously discovered one shot of his, which depicted the aftermath of a New Year’s Eve confrontation on a Manchester road and was in comparison with the murals’s Old Masters, going viral in 2016.

His photographs of the riot, the place a mob of a whole lot pressured entry to the Holiday Inn Express setting fires and clashing with police, had been extensively revealed within the media.

He mentioned he might solely cowl the “horrific violence” on the bottom as a result of he was in a position to “work freely”, and handing pictures to police would put him in danger.

If his topics thought all his work would “end up in the hands of the police then they won’t trust me”, he advised Daily News Newsnight.

“It’s not just me, next time it won’t be me, it could be one of my colleagues who is assaulted for being a copper’s nark.”

The case has led the NUJ to put in writing to the National Police Chiefs’ Council to object to what it described as police making an attempt to make use of journalists as “investigative shortcuts”.

Michelle Stanistreet, the union’s common secretary, mentioned these makes an attempt would “only serve to erode the “security of journalists working in difficult circumstances”.

More than 60 officers were hurt in the riot and 18 people have so far appeared in court charged with various offences.

A force spokesman said the law around criminal evidence allowed police to apply to a judge for a court order forcing journalists, “in some circumstances”, to disclose material.

He said these production orders were regularly granted for evidence like phone records or bank accounts.

“We are contemplating making use of to the court docket for this form of order in relation to the pictures,” the force said.

A judge can agree to such an order if the material is likely to be relevant to an offence, or deemed to be of substantial value to an investigation.

But police have to specify what material they are looking for in these applications, rather than file a broad request.

Material given to a journalist in confidence is excluded, but that exemption is unlikely to be used in the case of a public riot.

Ms Stanistreet said the NUJ had also written to a UK government committee on the safety of journalists to express concerns.

She said there was a “collective accountability” to ensure reporters could work safely and “free from interreference”.