West Midlands police and the Crown Prosecution Service have paid the makers of a Channel 4 documentary six-figure libel damages and will apologise to them in court on Wednesday.

The case follows a police investigation into the film, Undercover Mosque , in 2007. Initially, detectives looked at whether preachers and religious instructors featured in the film making inflammatory remarks about women, Jews and homosexuals should be prosecuted. However, after the CPS decided there was not enough evidence, the two authorities turned to the programme-makers. They said the documentary had been edited in such an extreme and misleading way it “completely distorted” the meaning of the people quoted in it. The police and CPS issued press releases and reported Hardcash Productions, the makers, to Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator. But the regulator cleared the programme, saying it was “a legitimate investigation, uncovering matters of important public interest”. It threw out the allegation of misleading editing.

The programme makers were so angered by the attitude of the police and the prosecutors, who did not withdraw their press releases, that they sued them for libel.