Benefits Street: charity chiefs accuse Channel 4 of breaching legal remit with "extreme' documentary But others, including John Bird, the founder of The Big issue, have hailed it as one of the few honest portrayals of the reality of the welfare system today. Last week it emerged that police were considering launching an investigation after the show broadcast a thief demonstrating how to shoplift. This week it is expected to show a family of 14 Romanian immigrants, including a child bride and one English speaker, moving into the street and searching through refuse for scrap metal to sell. Channel 4 and Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, have already received hundreds of complaints and there have also been alleged death threats against participants. The signatories led by Matthew Reed, chief executive of the Children's Society, wrote: "The programme purports to "reveal the reality of a life on benefits," but ignores the reality that for the vast majority of the ordinary people who need support from benefits, it's because they are working but receiving a low wage, have an illness or disability or have lost their job." "The Who Benefits? campaign - a coalition of more than 100 charities and community groups - is today calling for Channel 4, as a public service broadcaster, to urgently review how this damaging and grossly unbalanced programme came to be broadcast, profoundly undermining its commitment to "stimulate well-informed debate." By focusing on an extremely unrepresentative minority, Channel 4 is reinforcing harmful stereotypes where the most extreme examples are presented as the norm. The signatories, who also include Leslie Morphy and Fiona Weir, chief executives of Crisis and Gingerbread, have also written directly to Channel 4, adding: "This programme does real harm not just to those who were filmed but to others who need the support of benefits. Such portrayals skew the public debate about benefits and cause shame and distress for the millions of people who need this support. A Channel 4 spokesman said: "Filmed for more than a year in an area of Birmingham that has had the highest level of unemployment in the country for the last eight years, Benefits Street is a fair and balanced observational documentary series. It is a sympathetic, humane and objective portrayal of how people are coping with continuing austerity and cuts in benefits.