Case Explained: Breakthrough for crime reporters as police PRs agree to answer the phone – Legal Perspective

All police forces in England and Wales will be expected to answer phone calls from journalists under updated police media guidelines.

The guidance forms part of a new Policing and Media Charter for England and Wales developed over two years of talks between senior police and media representatives.

The charter was launched at the Society of Editors’ Future of News conference in London on Tuesday, and follows years of a decline in trust between police and journalists in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry.

“It’s fair to say the last 15 years, since the Leveson Inquiry, there’s been a cooling of the relationship between the police and the media,” John Battle, head of Legal and Compliance at ITN, told the conference.

“From the police perspective, they would say, ‘we were constrained by what Leveson said, but also by laws such as data protection and privacy’… I think there was a feeling with the police that there was not necessarily enough reporting of the good work that they did.”

He added these problems came to a head with high-profile cases including the disappearance of Nicola Bulley in Lancashire in 2023 and Southport killings in 2024.

Trust of police left ‘at pace’

Sir Andy Marsh, chief executive of the College of Policing, said the police were “very reluctant to come forward” and share details of the Bulley case, “and it had a huge impact on trust and confidence”.

“Trust arrives on a tortoise, and it leaves on a horse, and the trust had left at some pace,” he said.

Rebecca Camber, chair of the Crime Reporters Association, said relations worsened to the point that some police press officers had “quietly ditched their telephone line”, a practice the charter sets out to end.

“Police press offices are 1773770707 contactable by phone,” Camber said. “Shouldn’t that be happening already? Of course it should… we changed that,” she said.

Under new guidance, forces will publish press office telephone numbers online, and press officers will introduce themselves by name when speaking to journalists, expecting them to do the same.

Alan Woods, head of Media and Public Affairs at the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said: “Phones will continue to be answered… This is just the beginning point for that shift towards better engagement between media and police, press offices through the telephone.”

He added the next six months will be “key” in embedding the commitments within police communications teams and newsrooms.

The charter has also set out new guidelines for email contact, with police forces to publish press office email address online. Journalists are expected to share their name, number and employer in their email queries.

Other updates include the police sharing press officer contact details with the media and providing news updates directly to journalists, rather than the media expected to receive these through social media.

The new contact guidance applies to accredited members of the media who hold a valid press card.

Every force has two journalist safety officers

The charter builds on updated police communications standards with the media revealed in February.

[Read more: Police media guidelines updated to lift post-Leveson chill]

This includes encouraging officers to engage with the media, confirming nationality and ethnicity on arrest (in certain cases), releasing pictures of criminals on conviction and every police force having a designated journalist safety liaison officer (JSLO).

According to Woods, as of October 2025 every police force has two JSLOs in place, “one of which is a senior communications contact, the second of which is an operational contact”.

“Those two work hand in hand to ensure that journalists’ safety is respected in any incident,” he said.

Custody image release to ‘transform court coverage’

The release of police mugshots for all custodial sentences was also highlighted as a significant step – previously, images may have been released depending on sentence length.

Ben Fishwick, editor of Southern Daily Echo, said this will “transform our court coverage”.

“It’s going to mean that repeat offender who’s got [multiple] convictions [and] is a pain in the community but only gets short sentences six weeks at a time… we’ll actually start to get that person’s picture as well. And the most important thing is that the community know who that person is and are better informed.”

The charter has been created following a consultation between the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), College of Policing, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), media representatives, the Society of Editors, Crime Reporters Association and the Media Lawyers Association.

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