'Unfounded' Stephen Lawrence-Detective accusations

[vandamme]

From the Daily Mail:
"The integrity of the BBC was again called into question last night after allegations of police corruption in a documentary about the murder of Stephen Lawrence proved unfounded."

Link

Very interesting!

[Teddy Bear]

Well Van, it will be interesting to see what the subsequent internal investigation brings to light.

[vandamme]

I think they may not be one:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7043064.stm

"We considered it our duty to bring these serious allegations before the public and fully respect the response of the police to those allegations." -BBC Spokesperson

They have the right to accuse organisations without proof of their accusations!? Typical Beeb

[Teddy Bear]

"We were disappointed that the BBC compounded the issue by choosing to utilise the full weight of their very powerful publicity machinery to inflate disproportionately the importance and value of their findings" Metropolitan Police spokeswoman

The BBC has yet to learn that what goes around comes around. They want to piss off the police in the interests of (what they refer to as) journalism.
The police will remember this.

[Teddy Bear]

Police may take action on documentary claim
By Richard Edwards
Last Updated: 1:35am BST 15/10/2007

Scotland Yard is considering formal action against the BBC after it made allegations of police corruption in a documentary about the murder of Stephen Lawrence, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

An independent police watchdog has found no evidence to substantiate claims in a Panorama programme that a detective took a bribe to shield the black teenager's killers from justice.

Assistant Commissioner John Yates, accused in the programme of being party to a cover-up, is considering whether the Met will make a formal complaint to the BBC, or to Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator.

A Scotland Yard source said: "There remains a great deal of anger that these unfounded allegations were the main part of the programme and a wealth of publicity trailers as well.

"Time and again we told the programme makers that their allegations were incorrect and we showed them official documents to prove so. But after spending more than a year trying to make the programme they seemed determined to go ahead anyway. They edited and reedited several times to try to make it work."

advertisementThe documentary, screened in July last year, set out to explain the reasons behind the Met's failure to bring anyone to justice for the racist murder of Mr Lawrence, 18, in South-East London in 1993.

BBC reporter Mark Daly claimed that there was a corrupt relationship between John Davidson, a detective assigned as the family liaison officer, and Clifford Norris, a convicted drug dealer and father of one of the suspects. The allegation was made by another former detective, Neil Putnam, 49, who had himself confessed to being a corrupt officer.

An Independent Police Complaints Commission report, published this weekend, said the claims were unfounded, and that it seemed the witness had got Clifford Norris confused with a known police informant at the time, David Norris.

The BBC insisted that the programme had been in the public interest. "We considered it our duty to bring these serious allegations before the public and fully respect the response of the police to those allegations," a spokesman said.