Scandalous Pollard Report on the Savile Enquiry

[Teddy Bear]

Well the report is out today, and in effect simply shows how the BBC can avoid real moral and ethical consequences for their misdeeds.

If we just contrast the main difference between how this whole affair has been conducted with that of the hacking scandal.

From the moment the hacking scandal become public knowledge, the BBC was relentless in its coverage highlighting every possible nuance, bringing in everybody who felt aggrieved by it, drumming up so much public support that an independent enquiry was held and the police involved.

That the BBC had a stake in bringing Murdoch into as much disrepute as possible is no surprise and they succeeded in preventing him taking over Sky, their main rival.

A simple search of the BBC website shows the disparity of their coverage between the two scandals.
Hacking shows 849 items
Savile shows 180.

Now consider which of the two scandals is more vile and serious, and should be imposed with tougher sanctions than the other.

Murdoch closed News of the World, and gave up his bid for Sky. Dozens of people have been charged with criminal offences as a result.

The BBC was able to conduct their own internal enquiry, and even able to have certain evidence hidden from the public eye. Even with the subsequent McAlpine scandal, only 2 that I know of have lost their job, and even there Entwistle was paid off twice what he should have got. The rest have been moved around or remain secure in their tenure. Though Paxman announces that Savile's abuse was common knowledge, Boaden claims she never knew of it. And this is just accepted.

For me this shows just how stupid our society is for tolerating it. They really deserve what they will now reap for their allowing this vile and corrupt organisation to stay in business, further emboldened by their manipulation.

Here's a variety of articles on the report:

What's the BBC not telling us? Corporation releases redacted evidence into handling of Savile scandal as Paxman claims it was 'common gossip that DJ liked young girls'

• 3,000 pages of emails, interviews and submissions released online at 11am Lord McAlpine had urged BBC to publish all witness statements in release
  
• BBC DG Tim Davie: 'Redactions not about protecting the BBC's reputation'
  
• Accusations on Savile's crimes were censored on tribute page, it emerges
  
• Jeremy Paxman: 'News division has essentially been taken over by radio'
  
• One producer suggested probe into Savile abuse just hours after his death

'Common gossip' at BBC that Jimmy Savile liked 'young girls', says Jeremy Paxman

BBC releases Pollard report into the Savile inquiry: as it happened

Tim Davie: redacting 'not about protecting BBC'

Pollard report: key points

Paxman condemns 'contemptible' BBC behaviour over Savile investigation

Pollard report: the transcripts of key figures

On the BBC website about this report they give us this, notice how right from the start they minimise responsibility.

Savile inquiry: Paxman said DJ rumours 'common gossip'

Jeremy Paxman told a BBC inquiry into Newsnight's axed Jimmy Savile investigation that it was "common gossip" the DJ liked "young" people.

The Newsnight presenter said it was assumed they were girls, but he did not know "whether it was girls or boys".

But news executive Helen Boaden said she "had never heard any dark rumours".

So that's okay then.

They also make it easy for the public to know how to judge them with this:
The BBC's David Sillito says there are no dramatic revelations in the documents

Just move along - nothing to be seen here

Fact is - Savile was a paedophile who abused children on BBC property, the BBC knew what was going on and not only chose to look the other way, but furthered his career to where he could abuse many others elsewhere as a result of his status. Instead of eventually running a Newsnight report about it after the creep had died, they elected not to, and ran a further tribute instead.

Yet nothing happens as a result. Most societies would smell a rat here, but not ours.


Finally for now, here's a piece by Toby Young on the BBC redaction of the report to edit out certain comments made.

Jimmy Savile inquiry: redacted Pollard report is another blow to the BBC's reputation
By Toby Young Politics Last updated: February 22nd, 2013

Why is it that news organisations are so bad at managing news about themselves? Generally speaking, the bigger the media organisation, the poorer its public relations skills – and the BBC 's are the worst of the lot.
No doubt the Corporation will have plenty of reasons for redacting some of the more sensitive material in this morning's 3,000-page report into why Newsnight shelved its Jimmy Savile investigation. But whatever the excuses are, it's a PR disaster.

The reason the BBC commissioned an inquiry into the affair by Nick Pollard, the former head of Sky News, was, among other things, to try and restore the BBC's reputation for honesty and integrity. Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, wanted to create the impression that the top brass are not a law unto themselves, intent on protecting the organisation's senior employees. Rather, they are accountable to the public. We pay their wages, after all. But now, thanks to the fact that the report's been censored, the BBC has succeeded in creating precisely the opposite impression. It turns out the top brass are a law unto themselves. The report has been redacted to protect the reputation of senior managers. They're not accountable to the public after all.

So the Pollard report will do nothing to restore the reputation of the BBC. On the contrary, it will just compound the damage already done by the Newsnight/Savile fiasco. That's bad news for any number of reasons, but foremost amongst them is it will make it harder for the organisation's journalists to carry out their jobs in future. After all, how can the BBC legitimately demand complete transparency and full disclosure from public employees, including politicians, if it refuses to be held to the same standard itself?

Next time a BBC political correspondent submits a request for information to a government department, he or she shouldn't be surprised if the response they get back is heavily redacted.

[thehighlandrebel]

Thanks for taking the time to compile that Teddy. Shocking stuff and a page worth bookmarking.

Just as shocking is the silence of 'our politicians' and the law over this

[Teddy Bear]

Thanks THR - The thread has been stickyed for posterity.
The outcome is really what we could see was coming, but disgusting nonetheless.

I'm wondering why the other report, about BBC culture in enabling Savile to commit the deeds he did, will still take another year to come out. Doesn't matter what the finds are by then, it will be ancient history.

That's the BBC's internal investigation for you.

[Teddy Bear]

Ephraim Hardcastle makes this observation:

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Was no one connected with the Savile scandal sacked?

By Ephraim Hardcastle

Former Newsnight editor Peter Rippon, who famously shelved a film detailing Sir Jimmy Savile’s sex crimes, is to become editor of the BBC’s online archive.

Meaning no one connected with the scandal has been sacked. (Director-General George Entwistle was allowed to walk out with a £450,000 payoff).

Head of news Helen Boaden is now head of radio. Adrian van Klaveren, the acting Newsnight editor responsible for defaming Lord McAlpine, now oversees programming plans for the First World War centenary.
The scandal of Jimmy Savile shocked the nation, but it seems no one connected with it has been fired

The scandal of Jimmy Savile shocked the nation, but it seems no one connected with it has been fired

On top of all this there’s the censoring of evidence given to the Pollard Review. Will BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten and his new D-G, Tony Hall, get away with it?

[steevo]

Just to ditto THR even though I'm not there, great job. It's not surprising but nontheless despicable and, very frustrating. I easily relate, beyond the scandal itself because I no longer have any faith in our society at large. Without a mass media making the point to drive home the reality of real injustice day in day out, the corrupt elite live in blatant hypocritical abuse of power while people eat junk food and play with a new iphone.

[Teddy Bear]

Thanks Steevo
We see the world in much the same way. Of course it will change, but it will take a major event to cause it, and that's coming too. The very apathy and dynamics will create it. We are seeing its approach, only its precise form is yet unclear - probably a variety of things.

[Teddy Bear]

This Telegraph article examines some of the elements that have emerged from the Pollard report. Let's see what it tells us, and then look logically at the implications, and what still 'doesn't smell right'.

Chaos and 'faffing' at BBC as Jimmy Savile scandal detonated
Too many chiefs who never talked to each other and a historic culture of sex with teenagers disclosed in series of inquiry interviews.

By Gordon Rayner and Steven Swinford

Lord Patten, the BBC Trust chairman, has described the "chaotic" response of managers during last year’s Jimmy Savile scandal, accusing them of “frantic faffing about” as the crisis unfolded.

BBC staff in different departments were “on different planets” and the corporation “had more senior leaders than China”, who never held meetings together, he said.

During a 90-minute appearance before Nick Pollard, who was commissioned to write an independent report into the Savile affair, Lord Patten gave a colourful account of the BBC’s shortcomings, including a “dysfunctional” editorial team at Newsnight and a “silo” culture between departments.

Mr Pollard, a former head of Sky News, published more than 3,000 pages of evidence, mostly interview transcripts and emails, on which his report was based.

The 19 witnesses whose evidence was published included Jeremy Paxman and Kirsty Wark, both Newsnight presenters; Peter Rippon, its former editor; and Helen Boaden, the BBC’s former head of news.

Consider first that as head of BBC Trust, Patten's duty and remit is to oversee the goings on at the BBC on behalf of the licence fee payer, and determine that it functions according to its charter. You may recall at the beginning when the scandal emerged, we noted how strange it was that both Entwistle and Patten initially ruled out the need for an inquiry.

It's clear that now Patten wants to deflect any responsibility for this scandal from himself, and while he may not be guilty of any editorial decisions involved in shelving this report, if as he now declares there was 'frantic faffing about' of senior managers that he observed as the crisis unfolded, why was he so quick to state than an inquiry wasn't necessary?

In any event he should not have been so quick to accept the initial BBC version of events when he didn't know for himself what had happened. If that's all the BBC Trust is going to do, then WE SIMPLY DON'T NEED THEM. At present it can only be seen that their only purpose is to further the BBC in its chosen propaganda, and not in their role as an independent monitor of their output. While Patten may now be seeking to cover his own ass, t is apparent that he has failed in his responsibility.

It should also be remembered that Entwistle has been seen to be a complete waste of space in so many ways as this scandal emerged. But even before this there was criticism of Patten in selecting him for the post, at a great cost to the public

Six months ago the BBC hired a firm of headhunters, at colossal expense, to find a replacement for the outgoing Thompson. After a nationwide search, intensive profiling and hundreds of interviews, they have come up with – an Identikit model! Admittedly, George Entwistle does not sport a three-day beard. But in all other respects he is a manifestation of exactly the same phenomenon as his predecessor: the thrusting, middle-aged, white, male, ultimately meaningless media executive. Both men are habitually called brilliant by their acolytes. Both men – as was tellingly remarked of the broadcaster David Frost – have risen without trace.

Mr Entwistle parrots exactly the same ghastly language as his predecessor – indeed, one BBC executive proudly informed me yesterday afternoon that a memo has already circulated, proposing yet more counter-intuitive thinking.

Anyone who doubts this should examine Mr Entwistle’s profile. One learns that he has recently spent time on “BBC Vision’s knowledge, learning and multiplatform commissioning teams”. Those baffled by this may be interested to know that “Vision” is the BBC’s word for “television”, just as its “Audio” is what ordinary people call radio. But bureaucracies like the BBC love to create an inaccessible private language to make themselves seem more mysterious and important to the outside world.

In his statement yesterday, the BBC chairman Lord Patten inevitably promised that Mr Entwistle would serve audiences in ever more “innovative” ways. But the idea that he could mend the BBC and return it to the values and insights of Lord Reith is preposterous. Mr Entwistle is an establishment man through and through, the insiders’ insider. He entered the corporation shortly after university and has stayed there ever since. To sum up, the Entwistle career trajectory suggests he is a walking, talking manifestation of the BBC culture of metropolitan conformity.

The censored whistleblowers

As The Daily Telegraph first revealed last year, the BBC began burying evidence of Savile’s paedophilia within hours of his death on Oct 29, 2011.

Whistleblowers tried to post comments below a story about Savile’s death on the BBC’s website, but were censored.

George Entwistle, the former director-general, told Mr Pollard that an external company paid to filter comments had been warned of a possible “hoax”.

One visitor to the website wrote: “He was a paedophile. You may not like the truth but he was. It will all tumble out now. The little grope here, little touch there. One of my best friends in 1972 was molested by this creep Savile. He was never the same again. Killed himself in 1985.”

Another tried to post: “Sorry to rain on the parade of all the well-wishers, but he was infamous in Scarborough. I would not have been letting my son sit on his knee ... obnoxious creep.” None of the comments were published.

Mr Entwistle said: “The moderators had been put on alert in advance for some sort of Savile hoax with which the online pages had been troubled before.”

He referred to a transcript of a supposed out-take from Have I Got News for You in which Savile was confronted with sex abuse allegations, but said the transcript was a hoax.

He said: “That might be part of the story about the preconditioning of their minds about how to treat critical material … I wonder to what extent that had actually oversensitised them to stuff that wasn’t a hoax.” The comments were “never referred to the BBC at any level”.

Here's details of the hoax, decide for yourselves if you think that the comments posted and then removed by the BBC should not have 'raised an eyebrow' by the moderators.

Genesis of a disaster

On Oct 31, 2011, two days after Savile’s death, Meirion Jones, an investigative reporter and producer for Newsnight, sent an email to Peter Rippon, headed: “Jimmy Savile – paedophile.”

In it, he said that Savile, a disc jockey who also hosted Top of the Pops and Jim’ll Fix It on BBC television for decades, used to molest girls at Duncroft School, where Mr Jones’s aunt was headmistress, and said that some of the girls were now prepared to talk.

He pasted in extracts from a blog written by one of Savile’s victims in which she described how visits from the celebrity meant “pleasant food and extra cigarettes” but also being “mauled and groped” by him.

Mr Jones began working on an investigation, which was “briefly” put on a list of potentially risky projects circulated among departments, called the Managed Risk Programme List.

On Nov 17, it was listed as “investigation by Liz MacKean ” and the risk was identified as “legal/taste”. By Nov 28 it had been taken off the list.

Asked why it was risky on “taste” grounds, Mr Entwistle said Savile had just died and “it was on people’s minds”. He added: “I would imagine that people were anxious about the notion of how quickly you could pile in after that.” When it was suggested to Mr Entwistle that there was no “legal” problem as Savile was dead and therefore could not be libelled, he replied that “there was no capacity for fast and loose” just because the man was no longer alive.

The 'silo’ culture

Lord Patten described a “silo” culture at the BBC, which was evidenced when the Savile film was taken off the risk list.

Sara Beck, who worked for Steve Mitchell, the then deputy head of news, emailed Liz Gibbons, deputy editor of Newsnight, on Nov 22, 2011 to say: “Just so you know, have taken Jimmy Savile off for now and will put back on when it’s imminent. The document goes quite far in Vision and we thought it might be best to keep it off just for now.”

Mr Entwistle suggested that the women did not want people in BBC Vision, responsible for all television channels, to know about the Savile investigation.

Mr Mitchell and Mr Rippon knew that tribute programmes were being planned in the Christmas schedule and Mr Entwistle could not “dissent” from the suggestion that they left Savile off the risk list to avoid any pressure from Vision to drop the investigation.

Are we to believe that nowhere in what was being discussed, the ramifications for the BBC of having ignored rumours all those years related to Savile, even shown in front of cameras, yet that they continued promoting him, enabling him to commit further abuse, was not a consideration? They even ran a further tribute to him after the Newsnight investigation was shelved.

Is this what a 'respected' organisation does when there are serious questions of this nature being raised?

Frankly the rest of the article relates to this question. We are supposed to believe in all of the previous and following accounts, that the implications for the BBC wasn't a consideration in the decisions made. Either way they're screwed, because managers awarding themselves as much money as they do NOT to have thought this through properly, are clearly WAY OUT OF THEIR DEPTH.

A word in George’s ear

Helen Boaden, the then head of news, told Mr Entwistle during an awards lunch on Dec 2 that Newsnight was investigating Savile.

She told Mr Pollard it was “highly probable” that she said the investigation was into Savile’s paedophile past – something Mr Entwistle has always denied.

In an email to the BBC’s head of communications after the scandal broke last year, she said: “Are we giving the impression I absolutely didn’t tell George about the content of the Newsnight investigation? If so not quite true. I have always said I can’t remember, but of course it is highly probable that I did mention that is about sex abuse.” She told Mr Pollard: “At that point we absolutely thought it was [going to be broadcast] and that he needed to think about … the Christmas schedule.”

Ms Boaden said she “had never heard any dark rumours about Jimmy Savile”.

She told Peter Rippon that the Newsnight investigation should be just as thorough as if Savile was still alive. Mr Entwistle said this was not “inappropriate”, adding: “He, Savile, seemed to be somebody who a lot of people loved and liked and therefore a journalistic piece about him making allegations as serious as these would be one you would have to be able to stand by.”

The 'cover-up’

At one stage Dec 7, 2011 had been pencilled in for the screening of the Savile investigation, which would feature interviews with victims and publicly expose him as a paedophile for the first time.

But Mr Rippon got cold feet after being told that one of the strands of the film, an accusation that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to charge Savile following a Surrey Police investigation because he was too old, had turned out to be untrue.

Mr Entwistle said he was now struck by the “lack of agreement about what the [Savile] film was actually about” between Mr Rippon and Mr Jones and reporter Ms MacKean.

Mr Jones warned in an email that if the film was shelved the BBC would be accused of a “cover-up” and risk “another BBC scandal on the scale of the Queen or Jonathan Ross and similar damage to our core value of trust”.

He also warned that rivals were on the scent: “We know News International are all over this story. Some of the victims were called by Sky.”

Peter Rippon told Mr Pollard he felt “lukewarm” about the Savile film because: “It was a combination of a feeling in my stomach that these stories can be very difficult to pull off.”

What Mark Thompson knew

Mark Thompson, who was director-general at the time the Savile investigation was shelved, dismissed concerns about the Newsnight film as a “fairly small thing”.

Mr Thompson was told about the investigation by BBC journalist Caroline Hawley during a Christmas drinks party in 2011. He said: “The phrase that stuck in my mind is, 'You must be worried about the Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile’.”

Mr Thompson said the “casual remark” had not worried him. “He was someone who had not broadcast regularly for many, many years. So there was no corporate alarm bell going about this.

“If I had known, or suspected, that Savile was a paedophile or a rapist, I would have acted on that information. I had never heard any rumours at all, if you like of a dark side of any kind, sexual or otherwise about Jimmy Savile.

“I just thought this was a fairly small thing of what felt like an almost random remark. I enquired about it and received what I thought was adequate reassurance.” He said would have been more worried if the investigation had been into a current member of staff.

Now the head of BBC gets a comment from a journalist under their wings who says to you: 'You must be worried about the Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile’.”

What's the next thing an intelligent person is going to say or ask???

Maybe - WHY?

But we are to believe Thompson just dismissed it. For this he received over £800k a year.

'Sneery’ Newsnight

Helen Boaden told Mr Pollard: “Newsnight has been a troubled programme for some time. Newsnight is a bit like an old colonial power, with a lot of old colonial attitudes … refusing to accept a more modern world with less resource, a digital challenge and at times with an almost contemptuous and sneery attitude to the rest of [BBC] News.” Meanwhile Mr Entwistle suggested there had been a “critical breakdown in trust” between Mr Rippon and Mr Jones which “might go some way to explaining the treatment of the investigation”.

Let's see, who was head of news and responsible for the workings of those under them, and this 'troubled programme'?

Oh Yes - Helen Boaden!
HOT POTATO ALERT - PASS IT ON!

A chaotic response

The fact that the BBC had shelved its film was reported in newspapers at the beginning of last year, but it was only when ITV screened a documentary about Savile’s paedophilia last October that the BBC went into meltdown, leading to the resignation of Mr Entwistle. Lord Patten, who took over as chairman of the BBC’s governing body in May 2011, suggested that there had been “frantic faffing about” in Mr Entwistle’s office as he tried to get a grip on the scandal.

He said the BBC’s management culture was largely to blame, as when he joined “they had more senior leaders than China. The senior management team that the previous director-general had was 25 or 27. They never met”.

He said people working in light entertainment and those in news were “on different planets” and there should have been ample checks and balances to prevent the Savile scandal. “In this case you have a director-general, you have a head of news, you have somebody responsible for current affairs and you have an experienced editor of a television programme and things still get horribly screwed up.”

A culture of sex with young girls

Dame Janet Smith, who has been asked to produce a separate report into the culture of sexual harassment at the BBC over the decades, asked Mr Entwistle about the issue of office affairs.

He told her that since the Savile scandal broke, “I’ve been involved in conversations with people, for example [redacted] who have said that if you were [redacted] back in the 60s or 70s, there was an awful lot of sex going on, you know, a lot of [redacted] marriages got broken up because they were getting involved in extra marital sex [redacted] and this kind of thing.”

Dame Janet said: “That would be grown up to grown up, adult to adult.”

Mr Entwistle replied: “Not necessarily, not necessarily;… possibly adult with quite young women was my sense… there were attitudes to girls of around the age of consent that didn’t make an awful lot of distinction between a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old, say.”

He (Patten) said the BBC’s management culture was largely to blame, as when he joined “they had more senior leaders than China. The senior management team that the previous director-general had was 25 or 27. They never met”.

Surely then that was a matter that he as head of Trust should have addressed. What did he think he was there to do?
Can he for one really keep his job after this?

The outcome will show just how intelligent the government is. My guess is they will do nothing.

[Teddy Bear]

Just to focus on one other element in this 'internal inquiry', and how the BBC can edit out what they decide they don't want the public to know.

Glad to see the journalist also contrasting this to the hacking scandal, and noting the glaring differences.

Savile and censorship that shames the BBC

By Daily Mail Comment

Jimmy Savile's crimes were horrific, but why has the BBC retracted 90 pages of testimony given to the Pollard Inquiry

The emails and transcripts we – the BBC’s licence fee payers – are allowed to read about the Jimmy Savile Newsnight scandal are pretty devastating.

We now know that Jeremy Paxman thought it was ‘pathetic’ that the flagship news programme shelved an investigation into the paedophile DJ’s catalogue of abuse, and that he believed this was a ‘corporate decision’.

We discover the Corporation censored comments from its own website, posted by readers within hours of Savile’s death, warning that he was a child sex attacker.

One read: ‘One of my best friends in 1972 was molested by this creep Savile. He was never the same again. Killed himself in 1985. How’s about that then?’

Yet, incredibly, it was simply struck from the record and no attempt was made to follow it up or pass the information to the police – despite the gravity of the allegation.

But the most damaging charge against the Corporation is that we, the public, are not being allowed to see 90 pages of testimony given to the Pollard Inquiry by many of the BBC’s own journalists and executives.

Line upon line of evidence was redacted upon its publication yesterday, on the spurious grounds it could be libellous.

Sentences which began with phrases such as ‘It is no secret that...’ were, farcically, struck through with black pen.

Some 17 pages of Mr Paxman’s testimony were partially blacked out.

So much for the solemn promise made by BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten, at the beginning of the internal inquiry, to be ‘open and transparent’.



Some 17 pages of Mr Paxman's testimony were partially blacked out

Perhaps most offensive was the refusal yesterday by Tim Davie, the BBC’s acting director-general, to be interviewed by anybody other than his own staff about this blatant act of censorship.

The editor of Channel 4 News, which was denied a request to speak to Mr Davie on air, said it was only the fourth time he had been asked to accept an interview provided in advance by that person’s own organisation.
Evidence: Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman told the inquiry it was 'common gossip' at the BBC that Jimmy Savile 'liked young girls'

The other three were Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, President Ahmedinejad of Iran and Charles Taylor of Liberia!

Now contrast this with the third-degree Leveson treatment meted out to the entire Press, after a scandal confined mainly to one newspaper group.

Editors and journalists were questioned for hundreds of hours, in the full public glare – with every moment endlessly analysed by a slavering BBC.

Mountains of emails extracted from newspaper groups by law were published in full – and droolingly reported by the Corporation’s armies of journalists.

Truly, it’s an odd world when a full judicial inquiry is held into the hacking of celebrities’ voicemails, while an internal inquiry is considered an adequate response to the raping of 15-year-old girls by a predatory sex offender who the BBC harboured for years.

But then the Savile scandal is typical of an Establishment which, while turning viciously on Britain’s free Press, is determined to cover up its own wrongdoing and carry on as if nothing has happened.

Consider the fact that all bar one of the BBC executives involved in the Savile affair, and the subsequent slurring of Lord McAlpine as a paedophile, have either kept their jobs or been shuffled off to well-paid posts elsewhere in the Corporation.

Or how Sir David Nicholson has not been sacked as chief executive of the NHS, despite presiding over the needless deaths of up to 1,200 patients at Stafford hospital and then shamefully gagging whistleblowers.

In modern Britain, there is one set of standards for members of the State machine... and another for the rest of us.

[Teddy Bear]

Peter Oborne at The Telegraph echoes similar views to my own about Patten and his abysmal role as head of BBC Trust.

The BBC rot starts at the top, with the elusive Lord Patten
The chairman emerges smelling of roses, even as he sticks the knife into his juniors

By Peter Oborne

The late Frank Johnson, my former Telegraph colleague and inventor of the political sketch, loved to regale me with his theory about why so many Left-wing Conservative politicians enjoyed such a warm public profile. They would go out to lunch with The Guardian and the BBC (or so Frank claimed), where they would convey the impression that they regarded the majority of their colleagues with horror and distaste. Their disloyalty would soon be rewarded with glowing profiles in which the treacherous lunch guest would find himself written up as a civilised and compassionate influence in an otherwise barbaric and heartless political party.

One of the earliest beneficiaries of this tacit deal was Rab Butler, far more highly regarded on the Left than in the Conservative Party, in part because he loved to disclose juicy Cabinet secrets to press allies. Butler’s disgraceful background – he was an appeaser who entered into secret negotiations with Nazi Germany via Sweden during Britain’s darkest hour in June 1940 – was overlooked as a result.

Another was Chris Patten. One secret of his early political success, claimed Frank, was the ability to emanate a sense of mute despair about the Thatcher government to which he nevertheless undeniably belonged. As a result of his fruitful collaboration with the chattering classes (this phrase being another invention of Frank’s), Patten has gone a very long way on remarkably little. He now occupies two of the greatest prizes that anyone in public life can aspire to: Chancellorship of Oxford (the university which, in sharp contrast, refused Margaret Thatcher an honorary doctorate) and chairmanship of the BBC Trust.

One can only marvel at the skill with which Lord Patten has conducted himself in this second role. Though he has done little or nothing for the BBC itself, Lord Patten’s handling of his own public relations has been masterly.

He emerges smelling of roses from Friday’s Pollard report. No blame is attached to Lord Patten, who is permitted the luxury of being a semi-detached commentator on events, even as he sticks the knife into his juniors. For example, the BBC chairman has accused his line managers of ''frantic faffing about’’ during the Savile crisis. He also claims they misled him. Meanwhile he is scathingly dismissive of the management structure of the BBC, noting that the senior management team that the previous director-general [Mark Thompson] had was 25 to 27 strong. Sounding shocked, Patten adds: ''They never met.’’

Note the way Lord Patten subtly makes clear it was someone else’s fault. Note the way that he casually trashes the BBC management, while not questioning his own role in last year’s debacle. In particular note that it was the BBC managers who were ''faffing about’’ – and never Lord Patten himself. That, of course, would be unthinkable.

One would never guess from all this that hapless George Entwistle, the BBC director-general who was forced to resign after 54 days in office, was Patten’s personal appointment. One would never guess that Lord Patten became chairman of the BBC Trust as long ago as May 2011, 16 months before the Savile affair – giving him more than enough time to challenge Mark Thompson’s top-heavy management structure, had he wished.

One would never guess that Lord Patten was the man who was the ultimate caretaker for the reputation of the BBC. Just as he once convinced the gullible chattering classes that the Thatcher government had little or nothing to do with him, so today he seems to have convinced them that he carries no responsibility for the BBC.

So the culture of buck-passing that was exposed by the Savile crisis starts at the very top, with the chairman himself. Only this can explain why nothing has changed since last year’s crisis. Take the BBC’s notorious prodigality with public money. Lord Patten’s BBC Trust (whose mission is to act as ''guardian of licence fee revenue”) paid off George Entwistle with a £450,000 lump sum, twice the amount specified in his contract. Such a lavish reward for failure is part of an ingrained culture of greed and extravagance which still pervades the most senior levels of Lord Patten’s BBC.

Last December, the commons public accounts committee exposed a severance payment of nearly £1 million (along with a pension pot worth an estimated £3.4 million) made to the retiring deputy director-general, Mark Byford. These practices continue – last week it emerged that one unnamed BBC executive had been paid off with £375,000 of licence fee payers’ money, even though he had successfully applied for another well-paid public sector job.

The details of these obscenely generous payments remain hard to discover, thanks to the BBC’s secrecy, a feature which has been emphasised by the internal censorship of the Pollard report. In November, Lord Patten assured MPs that ''we will publish everything the Pollard review reports’’, while the BBC Trust website pledges to ''set new standards of openness and transparency’’. In the event much of the most important testimony has been blacked out by censors’ ink.

The same secrecy surrounds internal appointments. Two weeks ago the former Labour cabinet minister James Purnell was awarded a new role as ''director, strategy and digital’’. The job was not advertised in open competition and carries with it a salary of £295,000 a year, more than twice what Purnell earned as a cabinet minister.

It’s not just the size of Purnell’s salary that gives rise to cause for concern. He will carry the kind of portmanteau title that caused such chaos during the Savile affair, when no one at the BBC seemed to have any idea of who was in charge of what. Meanwhile there’s informed speculation that James Harding, recently sacked as editor of the Times, is to be given un unspecified role in the news operation. This is hardly encouraging. ''Scoop’’ Harding memorably turned down the MPs’ expenses story (later picked up by The Daily Telegraph) while overseeing a 40 per cent collapse in circulation during his five years as editor.

The BBC’s political reporting remains biased to the Left. Departmental savings are projected as ''cuts’’, while the BBC circulates far too many Labour catch-phrases, such as the so-called ''bedroom tax’’, which is not a tax at all. On Europe, even BBC executives admit that the corporation has been biased in favour of Brussels. A BBC Trust chaired by Chris Patten (and with the euro-fanatical Diane Coyle as deputy) could never be relied on to insist on fairness in the looming euro-referendum.

With or without Entwistle, Lord Patten’s BBC has been a shambles. Still dysfunctional, still disorganised, and run by the same self-serving and self-appointed Left-leaning metropolitan clique, it is conducting itself as if it actually wants to be broken up and privatised. This would be a great national tragedy, but that moment will come if the BBC carries on in its feckless, arrogant, greedy and deeply irresponsible way.

[Teddy Bear]

Helen Boaden claims that Mark Thompson was made aware of Savile's sexual abuse months before he left his post. He claims he only found out after he left.

I know I have already given my view on this, that he was bound to have known, and if he claims he didn't it would show just how useless he was in his position. Though he might prefer the public to believe that he didn't know as the 'lesser of two evils'.

Point is, if he was still there would Boaden have implicated him in this way? I'm willing to bet she wouldn't. That's how she's managed to keep her job for so many years, and despite her failings shown by this scandal, she just gets 'moved around', rather than fired.

BBC's top female executive says former Director General Mark Thompson WAS made aware of Jimmy Savile sex abuse claims

• Helen Boaden says she told former DG about suspicions in 2011
  
• Contradicts claim that he didn't find out about abuse claims until after he left

By Sam Webb

The BBC's top female executive has claimed that she told former Director-General Mark Thompson about the sexual abuse accusations surrounding disgraced TV star Jimmy Savile nine months before he left.

Former director of news Helen Boaden's testimony contradicts his claim that he knew nothing of the nature of the Newsnight allegation until after he left the role to become chief executive of the New York Times.

The Sunday Times reports that Boaden informed Mr Thompson about the scandal in December 2011, citing a source familiar with the situation.
Helen Boaden, former director of BBC News, has claimed she told former Director-General Mark Thompson about the Savile claims in 2011. Mr Thompson says he did not know the nature of the allegations until after he left in September

Lawyers representing Helen Boaden, former director of BBC News, have claimed she told former Director-General Mark Thompson about the Savile claims in 2011. Mr Thompson says he did not know the nature of the allegations until after he left in September

Mr Thompson has repeatedly stated he never heard any allegations about the former DJ in eight years at the helm of the broadcaster. But Boaden's new evidence puts doubt on that claim.

The BBC released transcripts and other evidence from interviews by Nick Pollard, who carried out a review into the aborted Newsnight investigation at the centre of the scandal, which support his claim.

It immediately attracted criticism because it was covered in censor’s ink, despite the corporation's promise to be open and transparent about the material.

The paper, quoting a source familiar with the situation, said Boaden's lawyer had made submitted points on her behalf to Pollard as he prepared to publish his conclusions.

A BBC spokesperson said: 'The BBC has accepted Nick Pollard's report and its findings. We have now published all of the background material for his report. We have nothing further to add.'

At the height of the Savile crisis Miss Boaden, 56, temporarily ‘stepped aside’ from her £340,000 a year role, and it was later revealed she had at one point offered to resign. Earlier this month the BBC announced she is to become director of radio.

Tony Hall, the incoming Director General of the BBC, has admitted he is ‘shocked’ by the level of infighting within the Corporation which has been exposed by the fallout from the Jimmy Savile child abuse scandal.

Lord Hall, who is due to take up the Director-General post in April, reportedly told friends that the scandal has laid bare a culture of blame-shifting and management infighting where no-one is willing to take responsibility for their decisions.

He is to make reform of the Corporation’s top-heavy management structures a ‘priority’ and has hinted that changes will be made to the BBC’s beleaguered Newsnight programme, which has been under fire ever since it dropped an expose into Savile’s sex crimes in 2011.

One source said: ‘Tony has been shocked by recent revelations which show a lack of teamwork at the top of the BBC and an unwillingness by some people to take responsibility for their own decisions.

'He feels that those two things are glaringly obvious from recent events and he will be looking at those issues once in post.'

[thehighlandrebel]

BBC response - Lessons have been learned and it's time to move on...now more on the Leveson scandal..

[Teddy Bear]

Things a bit quiet on that front so
BREAKING NEWS - at number 2 of importance on the BBC England webpage

Gay couple say London hotel denied them double room

This event happened Saturday night, but it's still at number 2.
At number 4, which happened today and is just after number 3 - the Bradford -Swansea football result, is

Attacked man dies after hitting head
A man has died after he was attacked in a Worcestershire street, fell to the ground and struck his head.
Police have not named the 50-year-old who was with his girlfriend when he was attacked in Sillins Avenue, Redditch, shortly before 12:30 GMT.

If he'd been with his boyfriend no doubt they would have bumped the story higher.

As for the gay boys refused a double room at a London hotel, now that's really tragic and something we all need to be aware of. I bet though if they find out that the hotel clerk who refused them is a Muslim, they'll drop this story like a hot potato.

[Teddy Bear]

We just covered the 'culture' of cover up rampant at the BBC with another example that showed how endemic it is in an organisation of this type.

Melanie Phillips comes to it by showing other examples, as well as the BBC, that share similar traits.

Cover-up culture and a political class that's rightly held in contempt

By Melanie Phillips

You can almost set your clock by it. Whenever a scandal erupts, it’s generally the cover-up that does the real damage, not just to the miscreant’s reputation but over a steadily widening area like a pebble rippling through a pool.

Over the past few months, we’ve had a steady stream of these most unedifying convulsions.

The latest is currently engulfing the Liberal Democrats, with torrid claims of sexual impropriety with a number of women by Lord Rennard, the party’s former chief executive.

At the moment, there is no proof that these allegations are true. But what is incontestable is that they surfaced several years ago. Yet, until last night, we were expected to believe — absurdly — that the party’s high command had remained in blissful ignorance of them.

Nick Clegg has said consistently he knew nothing about them until they surfaced on Channel Four News last week, despite claims by a party worker that he knew about them four years ago.

But last night, he suddenly announced that five years ago, his office had been made aware of ‘indirect and non-specific concerns’ — which his then chief of staff, Danny Alexander, had put to Lord Rennard.

Are we really to believe that Mr Clegg’s office knew about this but that he himself did not, and that Lord Rennard had been asked about only the vaguest of concerns?

The Deputy Prime Minister has surely now made suspicions of a cover-up far worse — and called into question his own probity and fitness for office.

The fact remains that no serious attempt seems to have been made to investigate these claims. Lord Rennard stood down four years ago ‘for health reasons’.

When his health was said to have recovered, he returned — but still without these allegations having been investigated.

So no one was held accountable — neither for sexual wrongdoing nor, if the allegations against Lord Rennard were groundless, for making false claims about him. It was all just brushed under the carpet.

This all bears a remarkable similarity to the way the BBC responded to the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Once again, no one in authority apparently saw or heard anything at all — even though Savile’s rapes and sexual abuse of young people took place on an epic scale over a period of half a century.

Some people actually saw these abuses taking place in BBC dressing rooms and the like; many others were disturbed by circumstantial evidence and persistent rumours; more to the point, some of these children plucked up the courage to complain about what Savile had done to them.

Yet all were ignored. In the BBC, as in the children’s homes and the hospitals where Savile apparently carried out his hideous assaults, no one did anything at all about them.

Scroll on to the eventual detonation of the scandal and the ensuing near-meltdown in the BBC after Newsnight ditched its investigation into Savile’s abuses and what do we find, even after the Pollard inquiry that was set up to cleanse Auntie’s Augean stables? Why, no one is to be held responsible for any of this. Well, fancy that!

We are told that the incoming BBC Director-General Lord Hall is shocked by the Beeb’s management culture of blame-shifting and in-fighting, where no one takes responsibility for any decision.

Yet, although senior management showed itself so unfit for purpose, only one fairly lowly (deputy) head has rolled. The rest have all been reshuffled into other posts in the BBC’s byzantine structure.

Transcripts of evidence to the Pollard inquiry reveal that the BBC chairman, Lord Patten, has himself played this blame-shifting game.

Dumping from a great height on senior managers and particularly on George Entwistle, the former Director-General, Lord Patten blithely ignored the fact that it was he who was ultimately responsible for ensuring the BBC was properly managed, and it was he who had appointed the hapless Entwistle in the first place.

Even more astoundingly, about 90 pages of the witness evidence to the inquiry were censored — by the very people who we can assume were being exposed in that evidence for their mismanagement or worse.

At least (as far as one knows) no one actually died as a result of the BBC’s failure to act on Savile.

Not so in the Mid Staffordshire Hospital Trust, where up to 1,200 patients died at the hands of the staff.

Many of these patients were elderly and incapable. They were treated with appalling cruelty and indifference, causing a number of them to die in filth and agony, and countless more to suffer greatly.

It is hard to exaggerate the enormity of this mass institutionalised atrocity against the sick, inflicted upon them in the very place that is supposed to relieve suffering.

We now also know that hundreds of aghast staff were prevented from speaking out by being threatened with the sack — or indeed were actually thrown out for daring to protest.

And yet still no one has been held accountable. Complaints about 41 doctors and at least 29 further nurses were sent to their professional bodies, yet none has been struck off.

The Francis Report damned not just the Mid Staffs management but a ‘culture of fear’ from Whitehall down to the wards, as managers became fixated on meeting targets and protecting ministers from political criticism.

Now the Prime Minister claims to be outraged that no one has been held accountable for what happened at Mid Staffordshire. Yet he himself refuses to sack the official who above all should carry the can for this, Sir David Nicholson.

This man was not only chief executive of the strategic health authority overseeing the trust for a period while these terrible things were being done, but he now runs the entire health service that created this ‘culture of fear’.

Mr Cameron has said Sir David is doing ‘a good job’ as NHS chief executive and should not be made a ‘scapegoat’. But the essence of a scapegoat is someone who in all fairness should not bear the responsibility with which he is saddled.

Well, if the person presiding over this ‘culture of fear’ isn’t responsible for it, then who in heaven’s name is?

Scandals are nothing new. But there was once a time when those whose wrongdoing was exposed or at whom the buck finally stopped did the honourable thing and fell on their sword.

They took responsibility for their own behaviour and for that of those underneath them. They did not either tough it out until they had to be dragged screaming from their posts, nor try to shunt the blame onto their underlings.

Institutions, however, invariably look after their own. As politicians continue to wrangle over the Leveson recommendations for controlling the Press — which, whether underpinned by statute or not, will tie its hands — it is worth noting once again that the scandals over the Lib Dems, Savile and Mid Staffs came to light only because the media dug this information out from where these institutions had tried to bury it.

Yet even now the Lib Dems, the BBC and the NHS are circling the wagons, closing ranks to protect those who should rightly be held to account and struggling to conceal what can still be concealed.

While the political class turns savagely on the Press, shrieking about making it accountable, it is giving a free pass to institutions that have covered up three scandals involving claims of sexual harassment, abuse of children and cruel neglect of the vulnerable.

Is it any wonder that the public now view the entire political class with such visceral contempt and disgust?

[Teddy Bear]

As I surmised above, it was obvious that Thompson had to have known what the Newsnight investigation was about, despite his denials. Now it transpires he had admitted his knowledge of it back in October last year during a phone interview with a Times journalist. You can hear his admission from the recording in the article below.

You will also notice how many times Thompson has to say 'uh uh uh uh' during the interview, clearly to give himself time to think of 'the correct answer'. Almost like a stuck record, or a buffering problem. Consider how much this 'top executive' was paid relative to his performance here.

(hat tip - Alan)

Audio Tape Reveals Mark Thompson DID Know About Savile

Ninety seconds of audio released by The Times media correspondent Ben Webster has undone former BBC Director General Mark Thompson’s evidence to both Parliament and the Pollard Review over what he knew about Savile. The damning tape from an interview last October has Thompson admitting that he knew the fateful Newsnight investigation was into Savile and about “sexual abuse of some kind”. Fast forward to 9.15:


In a letter to Tory MP Rob Wilson on 23 October 2012 Thompson said he “never heard any allegations or received any complaints about Jimmy Savile”. On 21 January 2013 Thompson again denied knowledge of the Savile scandal during his time running the BBC. As Guido exclusively revealed, Thompson told John Whittingdale, chairman of the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee, that “neither Caroline Hawley…nor the leadership of BBC News told me what the investigation had been about.” Really?



This recording comes to light just two weeks after it was revealed by Miles Goslett in the Sunday Times that Helen Boaden, outgoing head of BBC News, asked her lawyer to write to Nick Pollard 12 weeks ago clarifying that she told Thompson in a telephone call on or around December 21, 2011 that Newsnight’s investigation was about child abuse.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that this Webster interview proves that Thompson knew that Newsnight had investigated Savile for child abuse in 2011 and yet still allowed the BBC to broadcast lavish tribute programmes to him that Christmas. Over the ensuing nine months – while Thompson was trying to secure his new job at the New York Times – he maintained he knew nothing about Newsnight’s Savile inquiry. This looks a lot like a smoking gun…

[Teddy Bear]

Lets put the background into perspective.
The BBC knowingly allowed a sexual pervert to molest children on their property for years. They even promoted him to the extent that because of his subsequent fame he was able to abuse children at other establishments.

Then years later, after he died, the Newsnight team decided to air the story about those victims who had complained of his abuse. But the story was 'pulled' before it could air. Not only that, they actually ran a tribute to Savile within a month.

When the truth later came out about Savile's abuse as a result of an ITV documentary, and it was found that the BBC had purposefully avoided revealing these facts, they first tried to pretend that it was because of 'editorial reasons.

While they tried their best to portray themselves as nothing but innocent, and it had all been a vague misunderstanding about who said what and when, the government started to apply pressure, and forced the BBC to hold a review, albeit headed by somebody that they chose themselves - Nick Pollard.

£2.4MILLION later this is what he has to say about what he found.

BBC bosses 'not credible' on Savile: Author claims executives may have deliberately misled his inquiry

• Former Sky News chief Nick Pollard 'failed to get to the bottom of the affair'
  
• He said some claimed they had forgotten the key events
  
• Among those questioned was former director general George Entwistle

By Alasdair Glennie

BBC executives may have deliberately misled the official inquiry into the Jimmy Savile scandal, its author has claimed.

Speaking publicly for the first time since his £2.4million report was published, Nick Pollard admitted he failed to get to the bottom of the affair because those involved repeatedly claimed they were unable to remember key events.

The former Sky News chief told Radio 4’s Media Show he thought the excuses were ‘not completely [credible]’.

The Pollard review was set up last year to investigate allegations that Newsnight scrapped an investigation into Savile’s paedophile activities in November 2011 to avoid clashing with a Christmas tribute programme following his death.

Among those questioned was former director general George Entwistle, who repeatedly said he was unable to remember important exchanges.

Former deputy news director Steve Mitchell was castigated in the report for being ‘exceptionally vague’.

The Pollard review was set up last year to investigate allegations that Newsnight scrapped an investigation into Savile's paedophile activities in November 2011 to avoid clashing with a Christmas tribute programme following his death

The Pollard review was set up last year to investigate allegations that Newsnight scrapped an investigation into Savile's paedophile activities in November 2011 to avoid clashing with a Christmas tribute programme following his death

In all, the document contained 45 references to BBC executives claiming they were unable to recall important episodes.

Mr Pollard admitted: ‘We didn’t, I think, get absolutely to the point where we could say with 100 per cent assurance, “This is precisely what happened, and why”. [That was] partly because of conflicting recollections by people, or no recollections offered to us.’

A BBC spokesman said the report’s findings had been accepted and there was nothing further to add.

Basically they are putting two fingers up to everybody, treating the public with complete scorn and derision. They can do what they like and everybody is powerless to do anything about it.

Can anybody imagine for a moment that a matter like this, and who said what and to whom, and what happened as a result has slipped from their memory?

These are people who award themselves astronomical salaries and perks because of the inflated worth they believe themselves to have.

If the public fail to demand action now from our hitherto spineless government over this, or to take direct action themselves, then they deserve what is going to happen now to this country.

How much more shit has to happen?

[Teddy Bear]

Well at least one MP, Rob Wilson, has urged Pollard to now put the impressions he voiced on the Radio4 programme into his report.

How he could have concluded that there was no pressure from BBC bosses to drop the Newsnight programme, considering that nobody seemed to remember who said what and to whom, is ridiculous.

It's a cover up of a cover up, and why it's cost @ £3Million for this farcical review is another thing the MPs should be looking into.

MPs demand new BBC report on Jimmy Savile abuse scandal

• Nick Pollard headed an inquiry into why BBC2's Newsnight shelved an investigation into Savile
  
• MPs are now calling on him to publish a new report listing his concerns

By Miles Goslett

The chairman of the BBC’s £3 million inquiry into the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal is under pressure to correct his report after revealing he may have been misled by the corporation’s executives.

MPs are demanding that Nick Pollard, who headed an inquiry into why BBC2’s Newsnight shelved an investigation into Savile, publish a new version of his report so he can provide details of his concerns.

Their intervention follows an appearance by Mr Pollard on Radio 4’s The Media Show last week in which he admitted senior staff may have misled his inquiry.

Mr Pollard told the programme he thought excuses offered by some BBC executives were not completely credible, adding: ‘We didn’t get to the point where we could say this is precisely what happened and why – partly because of conflicting recollections, or no recollections offered to us.’

Tory MP Rob Wilson has written to Mr Pollard urging him to detail his concerns in a ‘new chapter’ to the initial report, which concluded that Newsnight’s decision not to proceed with its investigation was not the result of undue influence from BBC bosses.

A spokesman said the BBC had accepted the report’s findings and had ‘nothing further to add’.

[Teddy Bear]

Further questions for the BBC over the dubious outcome of the Pollard review. Will anything really be done about it, or is it simply posturing by the MPs who will just slap the BBC on the wrist?

My guess is the latter.

BBC top brass to face Commons grilling over Jimmy Savile 'cover-up'

• Lord Hall and Lord Patten will face MPs' questions this week
  
• BBC chiefs will be grilled on the Corporation's failure to expose the Savile scandal
  
• Tory MP accuses bosses of 'kicking evidence into the long grass'

By Miles Goslett and Paul Cahalan

BBC chiefs Lord Hall and Lord Patten will be grilled by MPs this week over an alleged ‘cover-up’ in the £3million inquiry into the Corporation’s failure to expose the Jimmy Savile scandal.

The Mail on Sunday understands the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee will call up Lord Hall, the BBC’s director-general since April, and Lord Patten, BBC Trust chairman, on Tuesday.

They will be asked about their refusal to investigate why key evidence about ex-BBC director-general Mark Thompson was excluded from the Pollard Review – the report into Newsnight’s axed expose of the disgraced DJ.

Last night, a Culture Committee source said it was ‘a certainty’ Hall and Patten would be tackled about the matter, while an MP said the BBC’s failure to act ‘smelt like a cover-up’ and the report needed to be changed.

Helen Boaden, the BBC’s former head of news and now the £340,000 head of BBC radio, told the review that she had told Thompson that Savile had been accused of sexually abusing girls at a Surrey school, in a phone call in November 2011.

Thompson – now chief executive of The New York Times on a £3.7million salary – maintains he was not told about the sexual abuse allegations until October 2012.

Boaden’s evidence was excluded from the Pollard report when it was published, an omission a source close to the review – named after Nick Pollard, the ex-Sky News executive who chaired the inquiry – has admitted was a ‘mistake’.

If Boaden’s story is accurate, Thompson will stand accused of bringing the BBC into disrepute by allowing it to screen tribute programmes to Savile after he died on October 29, 2011 – despite knowing about the allegations against him.

Lord Patten was made aware of the issue in a letter from Tory MP Rob Wilson on September 6 and shared the information with Lord Hall and Pollard.

When Lord Patten advised Mr Wilson to speak to Pollard personally, Mr Wilson claimed Patten and the BBC were effectively ‘kicking the issue into the long grass’.

Last night, Mr Wilson said the report must be corrected to reflect the evidence.

He said: ‘Lord Patten and Tony Hall have seen the evidence but are content to try and kick it into the long grass. This is starting to smell like a cover-up by the BBC.’

A BBC spokesman said the Pollard inquiry found that BBC management did not suppress reports on Newsnight about Savile as had been widely alleged.

‘We accepted his findings. We have seen nothing that would in any way affect that,’ he said.

A BBC Trust spokesman rejected the suggestion the chairman washed his hands of this matter.

He said: ‘We have made clear to Rob Wilson MP that he should discuss his concerns directly with Nick Pollard, as a first step. That was the sensible and obvious thing to do.’

A Pollard Review spokesman said it ‘stood by the conclusions of its report’.

[Teddy Bear]

Let's just remind ourselves what was the purpose of the inquiry by Nick Pollard, which the BBC called 'independent', at a cost of £2.8 MILLION to the licence fee payer. He headed an independent inquiry into why the BBC’s Newsnight programme axed its investigation of Savile.

So why should he have knowingly withheld the most damning piece of evidence that showed Mark Thompson, the director general at the time, WAS completely aware of the reasons to axe the programme? Showing also that Thompson lied to MPs when questioned about it.

If the government allow this corporation to continue following this clear evidence of corruption on corruption, then they show themselves as part of the same corruption.

Revealed: Tape that shows BBC chief 'did know of Savile probe'

• MP Rob Wilson sent bombshell tape recording to BBC Trust chairman
  
• Mr Wilson says tape proves there was a 'cover-up' over Jimmy Savile affair
  
• On tape Nick Pollard, who headed inquiry, says director-general was aware of Savile accusations

By Glen Owen and Miles Goslett

A Tory MP last night sent a bombshell tape recording to the chairman of the BBC Trust which he says proves there was a ‘cover-up’ over the Jimmy Savile affair.

Rob Wilson has given Chris Patten a recording of Nick Pollard – who headed an independent inquiry into why the BBC’s Newsnight programme axed its investigation of Savile.

On the tape, Mr Pollard is heard admitting that he made a ‘mistake’ by withholding a key detail from his report. He says he was told that BBC head of news, Helen Boaden, had personally informed director-general Mark Thompson of the sex abuse allegations against Savile in December 2011. Mr Pollard added he received the information in a letter from Ms Boaden’s lawyer.

The assertion is at odds with Mr Thompson’s claim that he was unaware of the allegations against Savile until after he left the BBC in September 2012. In his final report in December 2012, Mr Pollard stated that he had ‘no reason to doubt’ Mr Thompson’s story.

But during the tape-recorded private conversation, Mr Pollard adds: ‘It doesn’t particularly reflect well on me that I overlooked this [the letter] in the report.’

Now Mr Wilson has inflamed the long-running saga by telling Lord Patten, he must decide, ‘whether you wash your hands of this – or whether you listen to the evidence yourself.’

The £3 million inquiry was set up last year to investigate claims that Newsnight scrapped an investigation into Savile’s paedophile activities in December 2011 to avoid a clash with a Christmas tribute programme.

More...

Paedophile BBC presenter Stuart Hall paid £4 a week to attend classes that will teach him not to be a sex offender
Hundreds of paedophiles on alert list escape arrest as experts say police are struggling to cope with number of people suspected of viewing child abuse online

Mr Thompson, now chief executive of the New York Times, has admitted that he rang Ms Boaden and other senior executives in BBC News in December 2011 to discuss Newsnight’s investigation of Savile.
Disgraced: An investigation into allegations made against Jimmy Savile was axed by the BBC's Newsnight programme

Disgraced: An investigation into allegations made against Jimmy Savile was axed by the BBC's Newsnight programme

HELEN BOADEN, director of BBC News
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Director General Mark Thompson

Recording: On the tape Nick Pollard is heard saying he was told that BBC head of news, Helen Boaden, left, had informed director-general Mark Thompson, right, of the sex abuse allegations against Savile

But he maintains he did not discover what it was about until nine months later, after he left the BBC.

Mr Wilson told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This has a bad smell about it and looks like some sort of BBC attempt to cover over the truth of what really happened.

‘The public is being misled about what the most senior person in the BBC knew about Savile when the BBC were running tribute programmes and keeping evidence of Savile’s crimes under wraps.’

A BBC Trust spokeswoman said: ‘We made clear to Rob Wilson MP that he should raise his concerns with Nick Pollard, as a first step. We will, of course, consider further evidence if Mr Wilson wishes to send it to us.’

A spokesman for Mr Pollard said: ‘There has been speculation about the Pollard Review’s conclusion about the extent of Mark Thompson’s knowledge. This speculation is based on a false premise, namely that insufficient consideration was given by the review to a letter from Helen Boaden’s lawyers.

‘That letter was fully and carefully considered by the Review before the publication of my report.’

[Teddy Bear]

Peter Oborne in the Telegraph examines the issue of the Pollard 'cover up', that the BBC wants to have seen as an independent review.

Lord Patten must find out the truth about Jimmy Savile, Mark Thompson and the Pollard Review
By Peter Oborne

The hallmarks of Chris Patten’s chairmanship of the BBC Trust have been a lack of grip and repeated evasion of responsibility. The grotesque pay-offs made to executives; the incompetence of management; the mishandling of the Jimmy Savile scandal: none of this apparently has anything to do with Lord Patten.

Now the BBC chairman has been given yet another chance to do the right thing. The Tory MP Robert Wilson has this week sent him the tape of an astonishing conversation between Nick Pollard (who led the Pollard Review into the axing of the Newsnight investigation into Savile) and a third party, an unnamed journalist.

In this tape Mr Pollard raises with the journalist his decision to leave out of his report a crucial piece of evidence which appears to prove that the former BBC director general Mark Thompson had been told about sex abuse allegations against Savile. He acknowledged that it could be seen as a "mistake".

Mr Pollard admits to the journalist that, during the course of his inquiry, he received a letter from a lawyer representing the BBC executive Helen Boaden. This letter explicitly stated that Boaden informed Mark Thompson in December 2011 (nine months before Thompson left the BBC) that Newsnight had investigated Savile over allegations of sex abuse.

In the tape, Mr Pollard reveals that he received the evidence before the publication of his Review. And yet Nick Pollard made no reference to Boaden’s conversation with Thompson in his report.

Now comes the shocking part. Nick Pollard stated twice in his report that he had “no reason to doubt” Mark Thompson, who told Mr Pollard that he knew little of the nature or seriousness of the Savile allegations until after he left the BBC.*

It is worth reiterating the relevance of why it is vital to establish what Mark Thompson knew and when he knew it. According to Boaden’s suppressed testimony she informed Mark Thompson shortly before Christmas 2011 that Newsnight had been investigating Savile for sex abuse.

So if we take Helen Boaden at her word, Thompson as BBC editor-in-chief allowed the BBC to broadcast a series of tribute programmes to Savile over the Christmas 2011 period despite being warned by his second-in-command of the nature of the allegations against the late disc jockey.
To sum up: it now appears that Pollard left out of his report a crucial piece of information that undermined one of his central conclusions. To put it more brutally, the Pollard report is starting to look a bit like a cover-up.

This is what Rob Wilson MP wrote to Lord Patten in his letter citing the tape recording of 7 November:

If the claim relating to Mark Thompson in the letter sent to the Pollard Report by Helen Boaden’s lawyer is acknowledged to have any evidential weight at all, the conclusion that there was “no reason to doubt” Mr Thompson’s account simply cannot stand.

I need not remind you that the BBC spent £3 million of licence fee payers’ money on the Pollard Report, including £96,000 to Mr Pollard himself for barely 8 weeks’ work. It would do no credit to any of those responsible for the Pollard Review, including you, if the Review was allowed to become a convenient PR exercise for the BBC rather than an inquiry that was, and remains, as honest and truthful as it can be. You need to make a choice as to whether you wash your hands of this obvious untruth or whether you listen to the evidence yourself.

Lord Patten now has the opportunity to redeem himself as chairman of the BBC Trust. The Pollard Review is a flawed document. It failed even to identify which BBC executive made the decision to axe the Newsnight investigation, and now we learn that Pollard has overlooked crucial evidence from Helen Boaden.

Lord Patten must take a grip. He needs to examine the evidence which shown to him by Rob Wilson, and then he must surely commission a robust, independent examination of the flawed Pollard Review. For starters, Mark Thompson and Helen Boaden should be reinterviewed, so that we can get at the truth.

* Here is the quote from the Pollard report in full context:

The dropping of the Newsnight investigation was discussed by BBC Reporter Caroline Hawley at a Christmas drinks function in 2011 with Mr Thompson. She formed the impression that Mr Thompson had no knowledge of the story. Following the function, Mr Thompson checked the story out with BBC News but learnt no specifics of the investigation. Indeed, Mr Thompson told me that the various press stories which followed passed him by. I have no reason to doubt what he told me.

[Teddy Bear]

Peter Oborne received a reply from Nick Pollard about his article above, and shows just how suspect it all is:

Why Nick Pollard's report on Jimmy Savile just doesn't make sense

By Peter Oborne

Following my blog post last week on Nick Pollard’s flawed report into the Jimmy Savile scandal, Mr Pollard’s lawyer has sent me a statement.*
This statement challenges my assertion that Helen Boaden’s evidence was suppressed. It insists that, on the contrary, her evidence was given "full and proper consideration."

This is fascinating and very significant. If we are to take this statement at its word, there is only one logical conclusion to be drawn.

This is that Mr Pollard, having considered Helen Boaden’s letter carefully, concluded that her evidence was rubbish, and there was no reason to believe her assertion that she told Mark Thompson the nature of the allegations against Savile.

The decision to ignore this part of Helen Boaden’s testimony, which was made through a (publicly-funded) lawyer, can mean one of only two things. Either Mr Pollard thinks that Helen Boaden lied to her lawyer, or he thinks she is such an unreliable witness that her testimony carries no weight.

This state of affairs raises a further question. If Helen Boaden is indeed as untrustworthy as Mr Pollard appears to believe, surely she should have been dismissed from the BBC in the wake of the Pollard Review.

Yet she wasn’t sacked. She was given a new and very powerful job, and is now paid £354,000 a year as head of BBC radio. She also sits on the BBC Executive Board, which makes her one of the seven most senior BBC executives.

And yet Pollard felt that testimony from this senior BBC figure carried such little weight that it wasn’t even worth mentioning in his £3 million report, even though it contradicted one of his central conclusions.

It just doesn’t make sense.

*The statement from the Pollard Review reads as follows.

There has been speculation for some time about the Pollard Review’s conclusion about the extent of Mark Thompson’s knowledge of the nature of the Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile in 2011. This speculation has been based on a false premise, namely that insufficient consideration was given by the Review, when preparing its report in December 2012, to a letter from Helen Boaden’s lawyers which addressed the issue of Mr Thompson’s knowledge.

However, that letter was fully and carefully considered by the Review before the publication of my report. When weighed against all other evidence on this issue before the Review, it did not prompt any other conclusion than that set out in the report.

Given the interest in this issue since my Report, with hindsight, it might have been preferable if the Review had made reference to the letter in the Report. For the avoidance of doubt, the letter was given full and proper consideration and the Review stands by its conclusion on this issue.

[Teddy Bear]

Steerpike at the Spectator picks up on recent statements by James Harding, head of news at the BBC, and relates them to some outstanding issues at the BBC that they would much prefer to forget.

James Harding’s right: the BBC must do some ‘accountability journalism’, but on the Savile scandal report
Steerpike

Director of BBC News James Harding made a fascinating speech on Wednesday, setting out his mission statement for the Corporation’s newsroom:

‘Let’s start with holding people to account. In the offices of our local radio stations and regional TV operations – the places where the BBC does so much of its best work – we should play to that particular strength: accountability journalism.’

Mr S lives and breathes ‘accountability journalism’; it’s his eau-de-vie. But Harding seems to have a different understanding of the term than your humble correspondent.

You would never know it from BBC News (or, for that matter, Auntie’s in-house journal The Guardian); but Nick Pollard, who was paid the tidy sum of £96,000 and given £3 million to investigate why Newsnight’s investigation into Savile was shelved, has admitted that his report is flawed. Indeed, he has been recorded on tape accepting this error.

In the taped conversation, which has been heard by the BBC Trust, Pollard says that he was told during his eight-week inquiry by then head of BBC News, Helen Boaden, that she had, in December 2011, personally informed the then director-general, Mark Thompson, of the sex abuse allegations against Savile. Boaden’s testimony (which she confirmed to MPs at a later date) was sent to Pollard in a letter by Boaden’s lawyer five days before Pollard published his report on December 19 2012. It contradicted Thompson’s assertion to Pollard that he was unaware of the allegations against Savile until after he left the BBC in September 2012. Thompson has always maintained that he and Boaden had a ‘very brief conversation’ and that they have ‘slightly different recollections’ of it.

Strange though it may seem, Pollard neglected to mention Boaden’s account in his report. He has since recognised that this was an error. He said in the tape-recorded conversation: ‘It doesn’t particularly reflect well on me that I overlooked this in the report’. He added: ‘It’s a slightly awkward position for me because if I’d thought about it immediately before publication and I’d picked up on the significance of it I think I’d have probably put it in the report.’

This oversight not only threatens to undermine one of his report’s key conclusions, which was that he had ‘no reason to doubt’ Thompson’s version of events. It is also potentially damaging for BBC Chairman Chris Patten, who has been aware of Pollard’s self-confessed error for some time but has only just demanded an explanation.

Pollard’s confession — the latest twist in this long and winding saga — has been reported by James Harding’s old paper, The Times. And Harding knows all about the Savile scandal – including who knew what, and when – because The Times covered it extensively when he was editor. It has continued to do so since Harding left in December 2012. And ‘the paper of record’ is not alone: over the last nine months, the holes in the Pollard Report have been variously reported by the Spectator, the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph, the Sunday Times, the Sun, the Evening Standard, the Press Gazette and Private Eye, and by the irregular press.

The broadcast media have been active, too. Well-respected, tenacious (and even left-leaning) journalists like Paul Mason and Michael Crick, both of Channel 4 News, have been digging. There has also been a parliamentary question and two Culture, Media and Support Select Committee hearings on the subject. Nonetheless, the BBC has been struck dumb by a story that most other outlets — and many parliamentarians — evidently see as a significant part of one of the darkest scandals in the BBC’s history.

Leaving the BBC’s prolonged silence to one side, Mr S is also intrigued by the fact that MediaGuardian has not (with the exception of a Roy Greenslade column about the Pollard affair in March) shown any interest in the Pollard story. There has not been a single mention of it anywhere on The Guardian website or in the paper. The idea that this intrigue is not of interest to The Guardian, which studies the media in more detail than any other paper, is frankly laughable. Is MediaGuardian, which once regarded itself as the industry’s noticeboard, not remotely curious about what is going on here? Or is this further proof, if proof were needed, that certain things are beyond reproach to the denizens of King’s Place?

And what of James Harding, who seems to have become as forgetful as Nick Pollard since he joined the Beeb? Harding told his staff on Wednesday:

‘Our response to Savile and McAlpine should not be that we shy away from investigative reporting and the coverage of difficult issues. In fact, we must renew our commitment to curious, inquisitive journalism in the public interest.’

Mr Steerpike could not agree more. Even if the Guardian won’t touch it, isn’t it time to address this ‘difficult issue’, Mr Harding?

[Teddy Bear]

It would appear that Peter Oborne's articles about the dodgy findings of Pollard in his review have caused Pollard to realise he'll be better off admitting something wasn't right at the BBC concerning terminating the Newsnight Savile abuse programme, than carry on his previous pretence.

What is clear is a continuing insidious and corrupt behaviour from within the BBC as well as Patten, as you will read below.

Former BBC boss Mark Thompson 'lied' over Savile evidence, Nick Pollard claims
Telegraph publishes full tape recording of Nick Pollard suggesting that former BBC boss Mark Thompson lied when giving evidence about Jimmy Savile scandal

By Steven Swinford,

The author of a controversial inquiry into the handling of the Jimmy Savile scandal at the BBC has suggested that a former director-general lied when giving evidence, according to a tape recording.

Nick Pollard was asked by a journalist during a taped conversation if Mr Thompson's "instinct" was to "lie" during questioning when he appeared before the inquiry. Mr Pollard replied: "Yes. Well... yeah, yeah."

Earlier this week Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC trust, warned Rob Wilson, the Tory MP who obtained the recording, that he risked legal action if he made it public. Mr Wilson instead passed the full recording to The Telegraph, which has today published it in full.

Read the full transcript of the Pollard tape here

Mr Wilson, who described Lord Patten's warning as "Soviet era" behaviour and a "chilling" threat, said: "This episode paints a worrying picture of the culture at the BBC. The corporation ignored the evidence and I received a letter from Lord Patten warning me of the legal consequences.

"It appears that the BBC's instinct is still to cover up potentially embarrassing information rather than facing up to the truth about itself."
Mr Pollard, the former head of Sky News, last year lead a £3million inquiry into the BBC's decision to drop a Newsnight investigation into allegations that Savile sexually abused schoolgirls.

Mr Thompson, who left the BBC in September 2012 to become chief executive of the New York Times, told the inquiry that he had not been told about the allegations being investigated.

However, five days before the report was published a lawyer for Helen Boaden, the BBC's former head of news, wrote to Mr Pollard saying that she had told Mr Thompson in December 2011 of the "nature of the Newsnight investigation".

Despite her evidence the £3 million inquiry made no reference to Miss Boaden’s claim, and Mr Pollard wrote in the report that he had “no reason to doubt what Mr Thompson told us”.

In February, Mr Pollard contacted a journalist and admitted that he had made a "mistake" by failing to refer to Miss Boaden's evidence in his final report.

He said: "If I'd thought about it immediately before publication and I'd picked up on the significance of it I think I'd probably have put it in the report. You could say it doesn't particularly reflect well on me that I overlooked this in the report."

Asked if Miss Boaden's evidence suggested that Mr Thompson's "instinct" was to "lie" during questioning, Mr Pollard replied: "Yes. Well... yeah, yeah."
When the reporter said "I was always told you don't lie", Mr Pollard replied: "I think that's right. There's no doubt he painted himself into a corner."

Mr Pollard suggested that Mr Thompson would have been in a "better position" if had had admitted that he had been told about the investigation but came to the conclusion "there was nothing in it". "It's not a happy position but it's a better position, isn't it."

The BBC Trust said that after listening to the recording in full it will not be re-opening the inquiry. A spokesman said: "They noted that Mr Pollard continues to stand by the report's conclusion and were satisfied that the conclusions of the report are robust."

Mr Pollard said that Miss Boaden's evidence "did not prompt any other conclusion than that set out in my report".

He added, however, that he thought it had been a "mistake" not to make reference to her evidence in the final version of the report and admitted speaking to a journalist in an attempt to "address this". He said the conversation had been "inappropriate".

Mr Thompson did not respond to requests for comment. In November he told the inquiry that he could "not recall" being told anything by Miss Boaden "about what the investigation was about".

[Teddy Bear]

Just remember when you read this that Patten is supposed to be representing the UK licence fee payer.

Patten accused of a cover-up on BBC Savile probe blunder: Chairman knew of a tape where inquiry author admit he had made a 'mistake'

• Nick Pollard headed inquiry into why Newsnight dropped Savile report
  
• In taped phone call he says director-general knew of Savile accusations
  
• Mark Thompson denies being told about planned Newsnight inquiry

By Alasdair Glennie

BBC chairman Chris Patten is facing claims he helped cover up key evidence about the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal.

For three months, Lord Patten has been aware of a secret tape in which the author of the official £3million inquiry into the debacle said he made a ‘mistake’ in his final report.

In a recording leaked online yesterday, Nick Pollard admitted ignoring bombshell claims suggesting the BBC’s former director-general was specifically warned about the disgraced DJ’s sex abuse yet allowed glowing tributes to be screened after Savile’s death.

Despite being handed a transcript of the conversation in September, Lord Patten has repeatedly refused to reopen the investigation and even warned one MP he could be sued if he attempted to publish it.

At the heart of the row is a conflict between one of the BBC’s most powerful female executives, director of radio Helen Boaden, and former director-general Mark Thompson, now chief executive of the New York Times.

Mr Thompson was in charge of the BBC when a devastating TV report into Savile’s predatory past was shelved, sparking a wave of recriminations that culminated in the resignation of his successor.

His repeated assurances that he was never told about the sex-abuse allegations were accepted by the Pollard inquiry. In the official report published a year ago, Mr Pollard said he had ‘no reason to doubt Mr Thompson’s account’.

But in the tape recording, Mr Pollard privately admitted to a journalist that his report had been flawed. He had been handed a letter by lawyers acting for Miss Boaden which directly contradicted Mr Thompson’s evidence.

She said she warned Mr Thompson about the contents of the Newsnight investigation in a phone call in December 2011, weeks before a Christmas tribute to Savile aired.

Former BBC director of news Helen Boaden informed the Pollard review that she had told then-director-general Mark Thompson about a proposed Newsnight report into Savile
Former director general Mark Thompson insists he was not told about the Newsnight investigation

In the recording, Mr Pollard – who was paid £96,000 for eight weeks’ work – admits it was a ‘mistake’ to leave the claims out of his report. Pressure is now growing on Lord Patten to explain why he has not reopened the inquiry.

He was accused of trying to suppress the truth by warning Tory MP Rob Wilson, who tried to publish the recording this week, that he should be ‘weighing up the legal liabilities that might arise’.

Tory MP Philip Davies, who sits on the Commons culture media and sport committee, said the chairman’s position is ‘untenable’, adding: ‘Lord Patten has become a joke. Any credibility he had left has completely evaporated.’

Last night, the BBC Trust said it was taking the recording ‘seriously’ and had passed it on to Mr Pollard so he can give his version.

A spokesman added: ‘There was no legal threat – the letter merely suggested Mr Wilson might want to satisfy himself the recording was not defamatory, should he decide to release it.’

[Teddy Bear]

Here's a transcript of the Pollard admission in full. An audio version is also available on the website linked to below.

Jimmy Savile scandal: The Pollard tape in full

The Telegraph publishes full tape recording of Nick Pollard suggesting that former BBC boss Mark Thompson lied when giving evidence about Jimmy Savile scandal

Pollard: I'm pretty sure that we did ask Mark Thompson about this and he said 'no, I wasn't told what the inquiry was all about'. I don't know whether the Mark Thompson transcript is out yet but I think the gist of that is in there.

Journalist: I've seen that one, yes. You did press him, it looks like, and you did say - or rather maybe it was mcclean - hang on a second can we just get this straight?

Pollard: Yeah. Just putting that aside for a moment and this is off the record. It's all off the record, this is purely for background. I think we've talked about this before. It is clear that it is Helen Boaden's view that she told him about the nature of the investigation.

Journalist: How do you reach that conclusion?

Pollard: Because she sent us a letter to tell us that.

Journalist: Sorry, when did she send you that letter?

Pollard: Just before the report was published.

Journalist: You mean in December or this month?

Pollard: Back in December. And I think the truth is that I sort of overlooked that. I didn't see there was a particular significance in it. Partly because Mark Thompson had said 'No she didn't tell me about it. It was an open question. She might have done or she didn't.'

Clearly whatever Helen Boaden's recollection was he was going to say "That's not my recollection and she didn't tell me about it."

But I think it is clear and Helen Boaden's position is, if she was asked, she would say I did tell him about it.

So that's the position, between you and I. It's a slightly awkward position for me because it’s something that actually if I'd thought about it immediately before publication and I'd picked up on the significance of it I think I'd have probably put it in the report.

But quite clearly Mark Thompson would have said ‘Well whatever she says I think in this case she's wrong and her recollection is wrong.’
So it's quite a tricky position this, I think, and again this is strictly at the moment solely between you and I for no purposes other than me discussing it with you.

Helen Boaden is pretty relaxed about all this. I've talked to her about that. I've said to her I know you've sent us that letter.

It was one of these right to reply letters that most of the witnesses had if we had any criticism to make of them.

There was no criticism being made of Helen Boaden that she didn't tell Mark Thompson, so it was a sort of peripheral issue, but she happened to mention in this letter 'I did tell him’.

And I think that is what she has told anybody at the BBC who has asked, that whatever Mark Thompson says, she did tell him. Not that she gave him chapter and verse but she said...

Journalist: ...She said the words 'sex abuse'

Pollard: Yeah, I think she said Newsnight were doing an investigation of Jimmy Savile and it was about abuse of kids or whatever.
Whether or not there was any reference to BBC premises I don't think she says.

Now the slight oddity of this position is that the letter, these right of reply letters, which I think are known as Salmon letters, they are not being published

I think probably that's right that they are not being published because each one of them is from a lawyer on behalf of a client.

So the position is that it is Helen Boaden's position that she did tell Mark Thompson about it but it's not in the record anywhere.

So that's how things stand. You've been very straight and very square with me and I just wanted to let you know what the position is.
Now, you could say it doesn't particularly reflect well on me that I overlooked this in the report.

It's not in the report that Helen Boaden says on the record "I did tell Mark Thompson about it."

That's just a fact of life. If somebody went to Helen Boaden and said 'I just want to check, did you or didn't you tell Mark Boaden [sic], I think she'd say 'Actually, yes I did.' But there's not an obvious way of me making that public, shall we say.

Journalist: I was thinking there is one possibility. I don’t know if you read the Sunday Times on Sunday I wrote a piece in there which made clear that a member of the Commons media select committee has written to Helen Boaden. There has been no reply yet, but I wonder whether you feel it would be in your gift to independently contact that member of Parliament and say look, this is territory which was actually raised on a voluntary basis by Helen Boaden and she did actually confim that.

Pollard: I think the slight danger is that it's a little unpredictable what might happen then. I'll have a think about that. There's not an obvious other route to this. It's absolutely in Helen Boaden's gift to say at any time either 'I did tell Mark Thompson' or 'Not only did I tell Mark Thompson but I told the Pollard Review as well.'

Journalist: One assumes now the transcripts have been published she's going to seize that opportunity.

Pollard: Well if she thinks it's important, and she may not do, to be honest.

Journalist: Except that she’s got to respond to this MP so I'd guess she'd say to the MP 'Thanks for your letter. By the way I have written to Pollard about this already.' I assume that's what she'll do. That's what I'd do. And I anyway I don't think anyone for a second believed that Helen Boaden wouldn't have been asked what the investigation was about and wouldn't have told him what it was about anyway.

Pollard: No, I think that's right and common sense suggests that. Certainly I'd say listening to the Ben Webster tape, most people would come to the conclusion that that was a guy [Thompson] trying his damndest not to say yes of course I knew about it.

Journalist: Because he'd already stupidly committed himself to a denial.

Pollard: Well that's exactly it. He's painted himself into the corner. So I don't quite know about that. I don't think it's the most important thing to do with this entire process but...

Journalist: Well you say that but actually I've always thought the head of the organisation having heard about that would have been able to either take steps or...
The fact remains the BBC broadcast tribute programmes to Savile knowing they'd heard allegations that month that he was a paedophile.
Furthermore if Thompson knew that he'd have had the wit to say hang on I think this could potentially explode in our faces. What else did this investigation consist of?
And at that point Meirion Jones would have said 'we also heard about Glitter and Starr' and Thompson would have said 'Well they're still alive. We're going to have to tell the police about this.'
And so this is why I've always pursued it. That's apart form the moral element of it, Nick, which was always...if you or I heard of abuse taking place in our office I'd bet the farm on either of us saying we can't leave this one hanging.

Pollard: I agree with that. I wouldn't put myself in the position of defending Mark Thompson or in that sort of similar way, George Entwistle who was told about it and didn’t react..

I suppose what you don't know is how you might react if someone said 'Look we heard a pretty lurid allegation against a presenter who just died but this was 30 years ago but you might be relieved to hear we did an investigation and the editor of the programme tells me there was nothing in it.'

We know that is very very far from being the whole story because there was something in it and the editor's decision was wrong but you know what I mean, if you were a busy exec further up the chain and you were told 'The bad news is we got a pretty nasty allegation about someone. The good news is there that there wasn’t anything in it for you.' OK, that’s not an explanation. It's an element of how it came to be brushed under the carpet.

Journalist: I also think it's a fascinating insight that the instinct of Thompson according to Helen Boaden's version which you've just told me was to lie about this. Was to say I never heard anything about it. That tells you an awful lot about the man.

Pollard: Yes. Well...yeah...yeah

Journalist: I may be sounding rather black and white about this, but I was always told you don't lie.

Pollard: I think that's right. There's no doubt he painted himself into a corner...and actually if he'd said 'I wasn't told about it and rightly or wrongly when I was told the whole thing had been dropped I came to the conclusion that meant there was nothing in it. As it turns out that was wrong and perhaps I should have double, treble checked'. It's not a happy position but it's a better position, isn't it?

I think in a way this is your story. You've made the running on this. I think what this does is it puts you in a position where you know for sure that Helen Boaden did tell the Pollard Inquiry that she told Mark Thompson the nature of the allegations. I think it puts you in a position where you can't say in print how you know this but you're pretty watertight on the fact that that's the case. Because it seems to me reading between the lines that you could have heard this either of two sources - Helen Boaden could have told you or I could have told you.

Journalist: Or her lawyer could have told me.

Pollard: Absolutely. I'm including that in the Boaden side of things. You'll gather I'm in a slightly uneasy position about this. I think you would say it was a mistake of mine not to have picked up on this and included it in the report.

Journalist: Well of course I pick up on that but frankly that is irrelevant. What is relevant is the end result. She has gone on the record very happily, willingly, on a voluntary basis to tell you and others involved in your inquiry that she did tell Mark Thompson.
She obviously wanted to make that clear to you. She obviously wanted to do that for a reason.
Whether or not you had the time or opportunity to include that in your report is frankly irrelevant.

You are nothing more than the messenger. You can't have included every single element of what you were told in your report. We see from the volume of transcripts it wouldn't have been possible for you to do that. I understand you were under some time pressure. I'm not interested in pointing the finger at you. I am interested in establishing if Mark Thompson did know through his own second in command Helen Boaden this was a sex abuse allegation and what you've told me is this very important information that she did tell him. Do you know when she told him?

Pollard: No. From recollection I don't think the letter says. I'll have a look. Presumably after December 20. If there's an indication I'll ping you a date....

[Teddy Bear]

The noose tightens.
The more Patten tries to dismiss the real evidence of the Savile Newsnight debacle, the bigger the hole he digs for himself, and the BBC.

Credit to Paxman who picks up on it himself on Newsnight this week.

This article from the man who apparently exposed the flaw in the Pollard review - Miles Goslett.

My bombshell secret tape... and a cynical cover-up by the ducking and diving BBC: Withering broadside by writer who exposed fatal flaw in Savile report

• Secret recording was made in phone call with journalist MILES GOSLETT
  
• In it BBC inquiry's author Nick Pollard admitted excluding key evidence
  
• Parliamentary committee will vote on Tuesday whether to recall Pollard

By Miles Goslett

During Wednesday’s edition of Newsnight, Jeremy Paxman complained that the latest chapter in the Jimmy Savile scandal ‘doesn’t show transparency [from the BBC], that’s for sure’.

When one of the Corporation’s senior journalists suggests live on air that his employer is privy to a cover-up, you’d think his managers would recognise there’s a significant problem to tackle.

But, displaying characteristic arrogance, the BBC last week tried to bury the problem to which Paxman referred, just as two years ago it dismissed the original Savile allegations unearthed by two Newsnight journalists, triggering arguably the worst crisis in its history.

The parallel is striking.

Paxman made his cover-up remark after listening to a bombshell secret recording of Nick Pollard, chairman of a £3 million BBC inquiry into the Savile scandal, admitting he excluded crucial evidence from his report and lamenting this ‘mistake’.

Pollard stated in his report he had ‘no reason to doubt’ former BBC chief Mark Thompson, who said he was unaware of the Savile abuse allegations until after he left the Corporation in September 2012.

Pollard told me in this secret recording that this was in fact untrue.

He revealed that senior BBC executive Helen Boaden told him and his review team she personally informed Thompson of the nature of Newsnight’s investigation during a phone call in December 2011, nine months before Thompson left the BBC.

Boaden alerted Pollard to this via her lawyer in a letter written five days before Pollard’s review was published. Despite this obvious conflict, Pollard excised Boaden’s version of events from his final report and absolved Thompson.

Questions to answer: BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten, pictured left with director-general Mark Thompson, admitted it 'would have been preferable' for evidence not to be included about the report on Savile, right

Pollard, who was paid £96,000 to establish why Newsnight’s 2011 investigation of Savile was axed, was captured making his extraordinary confession during a phone call to me earlier this year.

He encouraged me to write a newspaper story detailing the evidence he had mysteriously withheld from his report – even though it undermined one of his central findings.


'If the BBC were an honest organisation, it would by now have insisted at the least that the Pollard report be amended accordingly. Until it does so, the cover-up continues'


When first presented with details of the secret recording four months ago, BBC bosses, led by Trust Chairman Chris Patten, were dismissive.

This is because they are desperate to draw a line under the increasingly poisonous Savile saga and its offshoots. The trouble is, they cannot.

New questions keep arising because, as Paxman noted, the BBC itself has not been transparent over the affair.

The Pollard inquiry couldn’t even identify which member of staff was responsible for cancelling Newsnight’s investigation, let alone why it was abandoned, because it heard so much conflicting evidence from BBC staff. Would any commercial organisation pay £3 million for an inquiry so inconclusive?

The clearest example of the BBC’s lack of transparency exists in a four-month trail of correspondence between Tory MP Rob Wilson and Patten. Wilson wrote the first of many emails and letters to the BBC Trust chairman on August 16 warning him of Pollard’s ‘mistake’.

In each response, Patten washed his hands of the matter. Astonishingly, the last time Wilson wrote, Patten made a veiled threat.

He said if Wilson broadcast the tape, legal action may result.

This is not the behaviour of a man intent on securing the truth for the licence-fee-payers he is paid £110,000 per year to represent.

Patten was also asked about problems surrounding the Pollard review by MPs at two select committee hearings this year.

He ducked and weaved, relying on the (now redundant) defence that Pollard’s eight-week inquiry was robust, even when in possession of evidence to the contrary.

It was only on Wednesday that Patten and his trustees acknowledged a problem with the Pollard report.

Under media scrutiny, they grudgingly admitted it ‘would have been preferable’ for the excluded evidence which Pollard rang me about to have featured in it.

Farcically, however, the Trust said it would not reopen the inquiry.

So, despite admitting that Pollard’s report contains a gaping hole, and having been seriously undermined by Pollard himself, the BBC is refusing to act.

This means the public paid £3 million for a report into a BBC child sex-abuse scandal which the inquiry chairman and Chris Patten both acknowledge contains inaccurate and misleading information.

If the BBC were an honest organisation, it would by now have insisted at the least that the Pollard report be amended accordingly. Until it does so, the cover-up continues.

On Tuesday, the Commons Media Select Committee votes on whether to question Patten again about his handling of the Pollard shambles.

As the only institution in the land to which Patten is accountable, it owes it to licence-fee-payers to ask him the questions he has managed to dodge for so long.

If nothing else, every committee member should remember Jeremy Paxman’s description of the BBC: ‘It certainly doesn’t show transparency, that’s for sure.