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School festival pics ban for press photographer

Coverage of a major music festival by The Westmorland Gazette was damaged when organisers denied a photographer access to the event because of child protection issues.

For years the Gazette has celebrated the achievements of young people competing in the Mary Wakefield Westmorland Festival – a bi-annual event that involves more than 1,000 of the area’s schoolchildren.

But when picture editor Steve Barber arrived at Kendal Leisure Centre to photograph the festival’s secondary school section he was told he could not do so. Parents had also been told not to take photographs.

After arguing the newspaper’s case and signing a leisure centre form outlining the purpose of the pictures, he was eventually allowed in.

But the festival’s chief steward then suggested he “steer clear” of a competition involving primary schools if the newspaper needed names to go with the pictures.

The decision was set against a backdrop of increasing secrecy and confusion among schools and youth organisations over whether they are allowed to identify young people when photographers attend events.

To tackle the problem, the Gazette sent a letter to 121 primary and secondary schools in South Lakeland, Furness, Eden and Craven last September, and asked for head teachers’ responses. Only 20 were received.

Robin Orr, chairman of the festival, said the organisers took the decision because they did not have time to contact all the schools for permission before photographs were taken, despite the festival’s policy of assuming it was permitted unless informed otherwise.

He said: “We live in a litigious age. You have only got to do one thing wrong and you are in terribly hot water.”

The Department for Education and Skills has no policy on the use of photographs taken at schools in newspapers and says schools and LEAs are free to develop their own policies.

According to guidance from Cumbria County Council’s health and safety department, issued in June 2004, “careless use of images” could place vulnerable children at serious risk and result in legal action against the LEA or school governors.

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP and shadow education secretary Tim Collins slammed the situation and said: “Everybody understands the need to protect children but the idea of having a photograph in the local paper putting them at risk is absurd.”

He said schools were very worried about being sued which led to “the most cautious possible interpretation” of guidance, something he said was “not the right way to prepare young people for their future lives”.

Mike Head, of Cumbria Police, said that in the past ten years there had been just one case of children being targeted by sex offenders through the publication of their photograph in a newspaper.