BBC admits changing news footage

The quintuplets were the first to be born in the UK for five years

The BBC has admitted adding the sound of babies crying to footage of quintuplets born to a Russian woman.

The original footage, distributed by an Oxford hospital of the five girls, had no audio.

But when the story ran on BBC Breakfast the clips had sound, even though the babies had respirators in their mouths.

"Although we don't believe viewers were materially misled, we should not have added sound to these pictures," a BBC statement said.

Other broadcasters including Sky and ITN ran clips of the footage without audio.

A BBC spokesman said the corporation should have left the footage alone: "We received the film without sound and on reflection we should have kept it that way."

The sound was removed from the story by the Six O'Clock News bulletin after it was commented upon by the hospital.

The admission follows a series of recent broadcasting scandals over authenticity.