COUNCIL bosses have admitted mistakes were made that allowed CCTV footage of a woman performing a sex act in a Southampton tower block lift to be aired on national television.

Although a complaint that the woman’s privacy was breached was thrown out, questions are being asked about who sanctioned the deal giving the production firm access to the footage?

An investigation has been launched into who was responsible for a deal by Southampton City Council which led to the footage showing a woman being shown on TV.

The probe was launched to uncover who sanctioned the agreement between the authority and the television firm to use the footage of the woman in a city tower-block lift.

The film showing the woman entering the lift with a man and briefly crouching down before performing the sex act, was aired on the Channel 4 show Caught on Camera.

It led to the woman filing a complaint to Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, claiming that it was an abuse of her privacy and made her so stressed she went into premature labour.

Her face and that of the man were blurred during the 30-second clip, which aired last year, but despite this she claimed her loved ones still recognised her.

After considering the complaint Ofcom dismissed the claim stating that the public interest in how CCTV tackles anti-social behaviour outweighed the woman's expectation of privacy, and that signs clearly stated the cameras were in operation.

However, criticism is now being levelled at the council over the decision to agree to participate in the series, and investigations have already begun into who was involved in the deal.

The authority is also being accused of hypocrisy in that it allowed the film company access to the embarrassing footage but were fiercely protective of filming in the city during the production of Immigration Street which was also aired on Channel Four.

Cllr Royston Smith, conservative party leader, said: “It's a shocking, shocking, shocking example of hypocrisy. This was not in the public interest. There is a massive inconsistency, if the council doesn't like Southampton being seen in a bad light they should consider what message they are putting out there.”

“Thousands of pounds were used to shut down Channel 4 when they were producing Immigration Street, it's shocking that they would allow this to be passed over.

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“I would definitely like to see an investigation into who allowed this to happen.”

The city council admitted to the Daily Echo that mistakes made with Blast Films, the production company behind the show, and as a result new guidelines had been drawn up.

A spokesman said: “We had a number of issues with the final edit of the programme and although some footage was removed at our request prior to airing on television, the production company reserved the right to final editorial control.

“Since the production of this programme, we received a number of complaints and have reviewed our policy of working with TV production companies on the making of such programmes.”

The programme was pitched to the council in the autumn of 2013, before filming for the controversial documentary Immigration Street began.

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Since then council leader Simon Letts (pictured above) said they have learnt from their mistakes.

He said: “I think it's a lesson learnt. It wasn't a decision I was involved in but we don't want to put people in Southampton in the position of seeing themselves in unfortunate circumstances.

“The production company's first proposal was quite different to the final edit and I do think it equipped us when dealing with the Immigration Street filming to be careful.

“The main complaints we have received from this is that residents feel council staff are laughing at them which of course is not the case and since this happened we have re-written the guidelines for how we deal with filming crews.”

Warwick Payne, cabinet member for housing and sustainability, said he believed that a senior housing manager with advice from the communications team would have been involved in the decision process, but that he would be asking questions about who was responsible.

He said: “I think we have seen what happens when a production company comes to Southampton and profits from it by leaving behind community unrest and if I was involved in the decision I would have wanted more say in filming and editing.”