My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding: Gypsy campaigners lose High Court challenge

Gypsy campaigners have lost their High Court challenge over Ofcom's handling of their complaint about the Big Fat Gypsy Wedding television programmes.

The communications watchdog were accused of unlawfully dismissing a complaint, made by the Traveller Movement in November 2013, that the Channel 4 programme had given a negative portrayal of travelling communities.

However, Mr Justice Ouseley dismissed a judicial review brought against Ofcom.

The charity claimed that Big Fat Gypsy Weddings and Thelma's Gypsy Girls had depicted children in a sexualised way and portrayed men and boys as feckless, violent and criminal.

It accused both series of advancing the untrue stereotype that travellers engaged in and endorsed violent sexual assaults of female children and young women - grabbing - as a cultural norm.

Ofcom disagreed, insisting the programmes had presented a balanced portrayal which offered insight into the communities.

It said it had examined the issue of grabbing incidents in detail during its "careful and painstaking" investigation.

Adrienne Page QC, for Channel 4, said there were no complaints from any of the participants in the programmes and Ofcom had found that the scenes were appropriately contextualised and justified.

After the verdict, the chief executive of the Travellers Movement, Yvonne MacNamara, vowed to appeal the ruling.

MacNamara also called on Channel 4 to stop making programmes which "harm traveller and gypsy children".