28/09/2011

ITV 'IRA Footage' Was Video Game

ITV have admitted that footage of a 1988 IRA attack, film which they claimed was real, was actually taken from a video game.

The coverage was included in an ITV documentary which discussed Gaddafi and the IRA and how deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi sent weapons to the IRA in the mid-1980s.

Footage lifted from the internet was included in the programme that showed a clip from a military simulation game called Arma II, but it was described incorrectly as footage of a 1988 IRA attack on a British Army helicopter.

An ITV spokesman said: "The events featured in Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA were genuine but it would appear that during the editing process the correct clip of the 1988 incident was not selected and other footage was mistakenly included in the film by producers," with ITV having removed the documentary from its catch-up service, ITV Player.

"This was an unfortunate case of human error for which we apologise."

(LB/BMcC)

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