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Winehouse Dad: Doco 'Incredibly Misleading'

Mitch Winehouse has claimed a new documentary about his daughter Amy is "incredibly misleading".

Mr Winehouse spoke of his fury at the documentary's implication that he and others close to Amy could have done more to help the singer before her death aged 27.

"I don't know what I could have done any differently," he told Sky News. "I couldn't have loved my daughter any more, cared for her any more.

"What more could we have done as a family? We sought all the help that we could, we went to clinical psychologists, we went to psychiatrists, we had our doctor, we were with the doctor every day.

"This impression that she was on this downward spiral is not true because there were vast periods that she was absolutely right as rain."

Amy is directed by Asif Kapadia, the man who made the award-winning documentary Senna.

It is the result of hours of interviews with people who knew Amy, from her dad to her first manager.

But Mr Winehouse said the producers had no understanding of addiction - and that this was apparent during Kapadia's questioning of him.

"It's incredibly misleading and it's unfair because we spent our whole time when necessary cajoling Amy into rehab, into detox, and into getting help for her mental situation," he said.

"There was family intervention after family intervention but you can't force someone to do something they don't want to do. Amy was compliant sometimes and sometimes she wasn't."

Mr Winehouse said the reason he was speaking out was in part to safeguard the future of his daughter's foundation and its reputation.

The Amy Winehouse Foundation works with young people to educate them about the effects of drugs and alcohol misuse.

It provides support for those affected and it also supports young people through music.

"If this affected the foundation and affected our funding and our sponsors then we might not be able to help so many people and that would be an injustice," said Mr Winehouse.

Kapadia admitted the documentary would be "uncomfortable" viewing for some but insisted there was no agenda.

"We did so many interviews and spoke to lots of people and looked at lots of footage, and I think all of this was going on around Amy when she wasn't particularly well," he said.

"I think when people look at it you think some of these decisions were not really right for her, maybe they didn't help her.

"I'm not trying to point the finger at any particular person. I think the industry has a lot to answer for because if a parent is not really sure how to manage the situation, they're new to it, they're not part of the music industry, somebody else should maybe be looking out to say, 'Should she really be on stage, should she be performing?'"

:: Amy opens in UK cinemas on 3 July.