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Journalists who interviewed IS bride Shamima Begum will not be forced to hand over their notes to the Metropolitan Police, a judge has ruled.

Scotland Yard had sought a court order for material from The Times, Sky News, ITN and the BBC as counter-terrorism detectives investigate the 19-year-old, who was discovered in a Syrian refugee camp earlier this year.

Shamima Begum was one of three schoolgirls - along with Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase from Bethnal Green in east London - who travelled together to Syria.

Begum was 15 when she left the UK to join Islamic State and has since been stripped of her British citizenship.

Her family are appealing against that decision and she remains in Syria.

In her interview with Sky correspondent John Sparks, Begum claimed she was "just a housewife" during her four years in the terrorist caliphate.

She married a young Dutch IS fighter called Yago Riedijk three weeks after she arrived. They had three children, who all died in infancy.

While she was aware of beheadings and executions being carried out by the extremists, she said she was "okay with it" because she had heard "Islamically that is allowed".

Begum was heavily pregnant when she gave interviews to media outlets from the Al-Roj camp in the north of Syria - keen to return to the UK amid the collapse of IS.

She gave birth to her third child in the camp, who died three weeks later.

At a hearing at the Old Bailey last month, lawyers for Scotland Yard applied to have unpublished material from these interviews handed to counter-terrorism command under the Terrorism Act 2000.

It was resisted by the outlets who argued it would undermine their journalists' ability to cover foreign conflicts.

Gavin Miller, for Sky, ITN and The Times, said the order would deprive journalists of their neutrality and place them at risk by making them de facto actors of the state.

"Journalists are believed to be neutral observers and it is this neutrality of the press that affords them protection," he said.

Judge Mark Dennis QC ruled on Wednesday that no one would be required to hand over any material to the police.

He said the investigative journalism was of "a significant public interest story which has opened up an important issue for public debate".

He added: "Such journalistic investigation is to be encouraged, however the work of investigative journalists in particular does rely upon trust, confidentiality, protection of journalistic material and sources, their perceived neutrality, and the co-operation of people who are prepared to place their trust in journalists."

The judge ordered copies of the notes to remain with a firm of solicitors until a further order from the court, to prevent it being lost.

Sky News has contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment.