A television company has been fined for unlawfully filming mothers who miscarried in a maternity clinic for a Channel 4 documentary on stillbirths.
True Vision Productions (TVP) has been ordered to pay £120,000 after setting up cameras and microphones in the form of CCTV in examination rooms at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.
While notices were posted in the ward, it was concluded by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that the firm “failed to adequately inform patients” they were being filmed.
ICO director of investigations Steve Eckersley said: “Patients would not have expected to have been filmed in this situation, and many will have been very distressed when they learned such a private and potentially traumatic moment had been recorded.”
The recorded footage, filmed for 2017 documentary Child of Mine, was deleted after BBC reported the concern expressed by some of the expectant mothers caught on camera.
London-based TV company TVP expressed “disappointment” with the outcome after making “strong legal representations” that the ICO was wrong.
“We are considering the decision and the potential for an appeal with our legal advisors,” the company stated.
Tara Bungard – one of the mothers who was filmed shortly before having a miscarriage – told The Times: “I noticed the cameras and essentially the patients were being spied upon. Being filmed when you are waiting to be told if you have lost your baby is bound to cause emotional and psychological harm.”
