Subject to subsections (3) and (7) below, any requirement imposed by any enactment that a local authority or parish meeting shall keep a document of any description shall be satisfied by their keeping a photographic copy of the document.

Subject to subsection (7) below, any requirement imposed by any enactment that a document of any description in the custody or under the control of a local authority or parish meeting shall be made available for inspection shall be satisfied by their making available for inspection a photographic copy of the document.

Subsection (1) above shall not apply to any document deposited with a local authority under the M1Public Records Act 1958.

In legal proceedings a photographic copy of a document in the custody of a local authority or parish meeting, or of a document which has been destroyed while in the custody of a local authority or parish meeting, or of any part of any such document, shall, subject to subsection (6) below, be admissible in evidence to the like extent as the original.

A certificate purporting to be signed by the proper officer of the local authority, or the chairman of the parish meeting, concerned that a document is such a photographic copy as is mentioned in subsection (4) above, shall, subject to subsection (7) below, be evidence to that effect.

The court before which a photographic copy is tendered in evidence in pursuance of subsection (4) above may, if the original is in existence, require its production and thereupon that subsection shall not apply to the copy.

A photographic copy of a document in colour where the colours are relevant to the interpretation of the document shall not suffice for the purposes of this section unless it so distinguishes between the colours as to enable the document to be interpreted.

In this section “court” and “legal proceedings” have the same meanings as in the M2Civil Evidence Act 1968 F1and “local authority” includes a joint authority F2and a police authority established under F3section 3 of the Police Act 1996F4and the Metropolitan Police AuthorityF5and the Service Authority for the National Crime Squad . . . F6