The front page of last week's Guardian (June 29) was critical of police for not supplying a police photograph of a man convicted of running a counterfeit DVD business.

The Guardian comment leaves people with the impression that police protocols prevented a photograph of the convicted man being published.

This is not the case, and it is disappointing that the newspaper chose to mislead readers in this manner.

The convicted man was on bail, which meant that the Guardian were free to take his photograph at court, as is standard practice for media outlets covering court cases. The Guardian chose not to send a photographer to court. To criticise police for not supplying a photograph when the newspaper itself did not attach sufficient importance for the front page lead to warrant sending a photographer seems more than a little unfair. In addition to this, this court case was not a police investigation, but a prosecution by trading standards.

So far we have issued more than 50 police photographs to the media to accompany reports on convictions for serious crime or the issuing of ASBOs.

Police photographs are taken when a person is arrested under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, and are taken for particular legal purposes. Where a crime prevention or crime detection case can be made in respect of a serious crime, and where offenders have been remanded in custody the police do release photographs to journalists. This is in recognition of the fact that if offenders have been held in custody, the newspapers cannot photograph them arriving at court.

There is national media guidance for police forces which looks at the law in relation to the release of photographs.

It says that a photograph can be released if someone is convicted of a serious offence and receives a significant term of imprisonment if that person has been on remand and press photographers have not been in a position to legally obtain their own photograph.

One final point on the 'police protocol'. It is not drawn up arbitrarily by individual forces, but is a nationally-agreed set of guidelines assisting forces in applying the law consistently. In addition to this, the guidelines are also dynamic, being reviewed periodically, and are subject to consultation with the national Guild of Editors, providing working journalists with the opportunity to form and influence police working practice.

In this case, as the defendant was on bail for a trading standards matter and could be legally photographed by the newspaper, there was no need for a police photograph to be issued. If the Warrington Guardian wanted a photograph of this man to show to readers they could have taken the picture themselves.

Brenda Cowling,

Head of Corporate

Communications,

Cheshire Constabulary