"Following strict guidelines, our reporter made himself known to her and explained he was from LWT," she says. "At no stage did she ask [the crew] to leave and, in fact, invited everyone in to her flat. "People we have interviewed say they like them because they may be able to help the police and play a role," she says. The security camera that filmed him saved his life because police officers came to his rescue, but he ended up reliving the lowest point of his life on ITV, BBC and in the local press.Dr Sonia Livingstone, a lecturer in social anthropology at the London School of Economics who is researching the representation of crime in the press, television and film, says programmes like Crime Month are attractive to audiences because they are participatory. "They may have been trespassing, but she probably implied consent because she thought they were a police crew." As the public thirst for real-life police action continues to spawn fly-on-the-wall footage from ambulance- chasing film crews, closed circuit TV and police cameras, Liberty is concerned at an increasing number of complaints from people who have had similar experiences to Yvonne's. How did they have the right to film me at my own home and then use it against my will?"Philip Leach, the legal adviser at the civil liberties pressure group Liberty, says the camera crew were perfectly within their rights.

When she rang 999, a camera crew came too. Yvonne, a freelance editor from west London, says the LWT cameraman, who she initially thought was a policeman videotaping her evidence, failed to identify himself to her and the police later promised her the footage would end up on the cutting room floor.She says she didn't think anything more of it, but when she went to get new keys cut for her flat three weeks later the key-cutter instantly recognised her from the television "Sorry to hear about your break-in," he said. She knows this because she has played the scene and the minutes leading up to it - when a large man held a knife to her throat and then moved it downwards to cut her handbag from her arm - over and over in her mind since the attack. Other people, friends and strangers, also know she was in shock because they saw her white face and the police breaking into her flat, SAS-style, on prime time television. Naryle Shields, the son of Dawn Shields who was strangled and dumped on remote moorland near Sheffield, twice had an application for compensation rejected because Dawn was a prostitute.. When the police arrived after Yvonne had been mugged at knifepoint, she was in shock. The receipt of benefits also extinguishes a bereavement award."A CICB spokesman said a number of factors were taken into account when claims were dealt with.The case is not the first controversial decision. If he had died in a road traffic accidents we would be talking about a considerable amount."In a letter to Mrs Jones, the CICB says: "There is no loss of dependency, in view of the continuation of the business.

I think that is a terrible decision."Her lawyer, Matthew Raggett, said: "We are appealing and it is my personal view that this kind of decision is a nonsense, crazy. The pathologist said that the injuries he received looked like those that you get in a serious road crash."I have two sons, aged seven and 10, and I applied to the CICB for help for myself and my children. They have now told us we can have nothing, only the money to pay for the funeral. He was kicked in the head by this man who was wearing heavy boots. They were coming out of the pub at 5.30 in the evening when the totally unprovoked attack occurred."He was murdered by a man he did not know and who he had never met before It was a very brutal attack. They claimed the abuse itself had turned them into criminals.Debby Jones, whose husband's attacker was jailed for life for murder, said: "He had gone to Milford Haven to refuel the boat and take the crew out for a Christmas drink. Last year the three-year-old son of a murdered woman was twice turned down for criminal compensation over her death because of her background as a prostitute.And a number of victims of child abuse at children's homes also challenged CICB rulings that the compensation they were entitled to would be reduced because they had subsequently acquired criminal convictions.