Bradford's Telegraph & Argus scooped the national press as they clamoured to report the furore surrounding the BBC's film exposing the British National Party this week.

On the day the BBC1 documentary The Secret Agent was aired, the T&A splashed on an exclusive interview with Andy Sykes, the BNP's Bradford area organiser who operated undercover to expose the extremist party's racist and violent beliefs.

He told the T&A's Tim Wyatt how he had begun to find the party's policies "abhorrent" and had agreed to work with BBC reporter Jason Gwynne to expose their vile aims.

Editor Perry Austin-Clarke said: "We have been campaigning vigorously against the BNP since they first started to put forward candidates in Bradford's local elections a couple of years ago.

"That campaign has won us a great deal of praise and support among decent, ordinary readers and we were able to use our contacts - particularly with the local TUC branch - to gain exclusive access to Andy Sykes days before the programme was aired.

"As a result, we were able to give readers an in-depth insight into why Mr Sykes decided to put his neck on the line to expose this nasty, racist group of activists operating in the Bradford area.

"Mr Sykes is a very brave man: he's already received death threats since speaking to us."

The T&A's three-page spread also caught the BNP on the hop.

Party leader Nick Griffin told them that one of the activists featured in the film would be expelled but their press officer Dr Phill Edwards insisted the man was not a party member - even though he stood in the local elections as a BNP candidate.

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