The compensation is ‘for distress of broadcasting eviction’
Channel 5 has been instructed to pay £20,000 in damages after filming a family’s eviction on Can’t Pay We’ll Take It Away.
The network broadcast Shakar Ali and Shahida Aslam, from Barking, being evicted from their home after they fell behind on payments.
Mr Ali did not give consent for the footage to be used on TV. Not only was the eviction shown but the episode was then repeated 35 times.
The judge said the damages were for distress caused during filming and misuse of the couple’s private information, deciding that their privacy outweighed Channel 5’s right to freedom of expression.
The family has two children and were caught by surprise when the landlord arrived with a film crew. Ali had just woken up and was wearing pyjamas and a vest. Channel 5 also showed the landlord’s son humiliating the couple, and revealed that they were unemployed and receiving housing benefit.
The ruling could have a significant impact on other observational documentaries.
Mr Ali had fallen into rent arrears as he recovered from a heart condition and a badly injured foot.
The landlord had obtained a court order for repossession and used a team of enforcement officers wearing body cameras to conduct the eviction. Channel 5 also recorded the family’s reaction and filmed inside the children’s bedrooms.
Judge Mr Justice Arnold ruled that the Ali family had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” and that the “focus of the programme was not upon the matters of public interest, but upon the drama of the conflict” between the family and the landlord’s son.
Christopher Hutchings, the family’s lawyer, said the judgement was “one of the first legal actions” arising from “an observational documentary.”
He said: “[The] judgement will inevitably have wider ramifications for those broadcasting film of a similar kind.”
A Channel 5 spokesman said the case only related to “a segment involving the Ali family and not the series in general” and welcomed the assessment, saying it recognised the show was “made in good faith and in the public interest.”
