Should Tony Martin appear on Tonight with Trevor McDonald – or any other commercial programme – the Independent Television Commission, like the PCC, could investigate without a complaint being filed. The programme makers would have to prove that the public interest would have been served if they were to pay Martin to appear on the programme to talk about his crime.
According to Section 5.2 of the ITC code: “No payment should be made to individuals, convicted or otherwise, for interviews about acts committed by them of a seriously anti-social nature, unless an important public interest is served.”
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