Video footage of vicious bare-knuckle fighting on a Bradford housing estate has been posted on the internet.

Half a dozen videos, condemned as absolutely reprehensible by community leaders, show blood-soaked teenagers going head-to-head in brawls in Holme Wood.

YouTube has now removed a number of the videos.

Bradford South MP Gerry Sutcliffe said he is due to meet YouTube bosses in his capacity as Minister for Culture, Media and Sport. He said: I will be raising the issue of these videos with YouTube. They should not be publicising this kind of thing. They have got to show more responsibility.

Tommy Hughes, Bradford Council's senior policy officer for safer communities, said: Bradford Council finds these videos absolutely reprehensible and we have already contacted YouTube get this material removed.

Other illegal activities, including footage of motorbikes pulling wheelies and cars performing hand-brake turns on residential streets in Bradford, have also been posted on Youtube.

Comedians and church leaders have claimed a victory for free speech after Government plans to ban jokes about homosexuals were rejected in the House of Lords.

Peers inflicted an overwhelming defeat on the Government by amending the Criminal Injustice Bill to protect the freedom of speech of comics, rap artists and those who criticise other people’s sexuality.

The television stars Rowan Atkinson and Christopher Higgins, who is himself homosexual, are among the prominent figures to have spoken out against the proposal to create a new offence of incitement to “homophobic hatred”.

Following the amendment, the offence will apply only to those who incite violence or harassment against homosexual men and lesbians, rather than jokes or broader criticism about alternative lifestyles, such as lyrics in rap songs.

Religious groups had campaigned against the Government proposal, saying it would criminalise those who voiced concerns on a range of issues, from the teaching on sexual orientation in schools to depictions of homosexuality in film and television.

Peter Tatchell, the prominent homosexual rights campaigner, also spoke out against the measure, arguing that freedom of speech should be sacrosanct.

Peers backed the amendment, tabled by the former Conservative home secretary Lord Waddington, by 81 votes to 57. He was supported by the Labour peer Lord Clarke of Hampstead, who told their lordships that critics of homosexuality should be able to speak freely without risk of police action.

If it is accepted by MPs, the new freedom of speech protection would prevent prosecutions such as that currently under way against the Oxford University student, Sam Brown, arrested after he called a police horse “gay” during a drunken conversation with two mounted police officers.

Ministers are now considering whether to seek to fight the amendment when the Bill returns to the House of Commons.

A spokeswoman from the Ministry for Justice said: We are disappointed by the outcome of the vote in the Lords on Lord Waddington’s amendment.

Campaigners say they are confident the amendment will not be thrown out, as the Government is keen to rush other measures contained in the Bill, including a ban on strike action in prisons, on to the statute books.