Dramatic footage of a man being beaten by police emerged while the Manchester Evening News was covering a routine magistrates court case.
Delbo King was charged with criminal damage and the CCTV footage was shown to prove the prosecution’s case. However, it also showed the violent nature of his arrest.
MEN court reporter Stan Miller secured a copy of the video from King’s solicitor and the paper led with the story on Friday.
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It was then followed up by most national news media.
The MEN broadcast the video footage on its website, resulting in a record number of hits – 4,104 page impressions for the story and 1,841 for the video link on the day.
Editor Paul Horrocks said: “It shows the value of having a good court reporter with good contacts who was tipped off in advance that the video was going to be shown.” He added: “It was a good exercise in convergence – using the newspaper to promote our sister website. We also gave the footage out to TV stations on the understanding that they credited the paper.”
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