Melanie Phillips writes, on her new Spectator blog:
The Ofcom ruling today totally exonerating the Channel Four Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque should not be the end of this disturbing episode. The programme exposed the preaching of extremism and hatred in a number of British mosques, several of them supposedly ‘moderate’ and mainstream... West Midlands police investigated whether any offences had been committed at these mosques and presented their findings to the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS decided there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against anybody. Then the West Midlands police decided that the real villains of the piece were the makers of the Dispatches programme itself for stirring up racial hatred. This astounding view was dismissed by the CPS. Undaunted in its determination to find the Dispatches team guilty of something, the police then referred the programme to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom, claiming that it had distorted various speakers’ comments, edited material in a manner likely to undermine community cohesion...read all