Researcher in TV case is charged

A TELEVISION researcher who worked on a documentary that alleged the Royal Ulster Constabulary and loyalist death squads colluded in murder will appear in court today charged with perjury.

Ben Hamilton, 25, of Willesden, north-west London, a researcher for Box Productions which made 'The Committee' for Channel 4's Dispatches series, was arrested yesterday morning. A Scotland Yard spokesman said he would appear at Horseferry Road magistrates' court to face one count of perjury on or before 28 July at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, central London.

A police spokesman said earlier: 'The investigation arises from a contempt of court action brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions, which followed a Dispatches programme on Channel 4 concerning alleged collusion between the RUC and paramilitary organisations.'

Channel 4 and Box Productions were fined pounds 75,000 at the High Court on 31 July after refusing to reveal the identity of the informant who made the accusation. The programme, shown in October 1991, alleged high-level collusion between the security services, loyalist paramilitaries and business people to murder suspected IRA members. Box argued that to reveal the man's identity would endanger his life.