Does this make any sense at all?…….
BBC Trust stands by ‘robust’ Pollard Review despite criticism
Nick Pollard’s review of Newsnight’s dropped investigation into Jimmy Savile has been defended by the BBC Trust after criticism from a Conservative MP.
Rob Wilson provided the Trust with a recorded conversation in which Mr Pollard appeared to admit omitting a key letter from his report.
The Trust said it was a “mistake” not to include the letter’s claims about former director general Mark Thompson’s knowledge of Newsnight’s report.
[Pollard] failed to make reference to the letter, which was sent by Ms Boaden’s lawyers, and later admitted in a taped telephone call with a journalist that this may have been a “mistake”.
The recording, which was obtained by Mr Wilson, MP for Reading East, was made public via the Guido Fawkes political blog on Wednesday.
It was suggested the recording raised questions about the validity of the conclusions of the report.
In response, the trust said: “The Trustees noted that Nick Pollard feels he had made a mistake in the drafting of one aspect of the report – the failure to make reference to the letter from the solicitors of then Director of News Helen Boaden.”
However, the trust said it was “satisfied” that Mr Pollard “properly weighed all the evidence that was available to him and that the conclusions of his report are robust”.
So….
The Trust agrees ‘it was a “mistake” not to include the letter’s claims‘
Mr Pollard appeared to admit omitting a key letter from his report.
However despite omitting key evidence and the Trust saying this was a mistake…the Trust was “satisfied” that Mr Pollard “properly weighed all the evidence that was available to him and that the conclusions of his report are robust”.
In summary…..The Trust said omitting the letter was a mistake…Pollard admits it was a mistake…..and yet the Trust concludes he weighed ALL the evidence and his conclusions are robust? Shurely shome mistake?
How does that work?
Rob Wilson thinks it doesn’t and smells of a cover up:
Wilson said: “Instead of immediately challenging Nick Pollard to get to the truth in September about what the most powerful man in the BBC at the time knew about Savile, Lord Patten seems content to resort to vague legal threats on behalf of other people to close the matter down.”
‘Helen Boaden’s position is ‘I did tell him about it”
Thanks to Number 7 for the link:
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 from 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….
More popcorn please.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/10512203/Former-BBC-boss-Mark-Thompson-lied-over-Savile-evidence-Nick-Pollard-claims.html
So to sum this up;
Pollard now confesses, that in his report (it was his report, after all) he had not, “properly weighed all the evidence that was available to him”
The BBC Trust’s interpretation of this admission is that Pollard, “properly weighed all the evidence that was available to him and that the conclusions of his report are robust”.
What a load of bollocks.
Clearly with those powers of telepathy and foresight, the BBC Trust wasted £3m. They could have written Pollard’s report for him (and probably did).
lets hope the MP looks at all of the BBC reports and hidden files and the FOI requests that the dear old Auntie has gone deaf on.
Auntie is specifically excluded from having her drawers examined to protect her modesty and to prevent even the slightest sign of any immorality ever being exposed. There were some very loosely defined “get outs” written into the FOI Act , so loose a coach and horses can gallop through the holes, which allow the BBC to duck having to provide the kind of information other kinds of organisations are obliged to make public. It is just another example of how the BBC can manipulate and bully our politicians, not that certain Parties need much persuading, to ensure the BBC is given special protection to ensure it maintains a preferential position over all other forms of media.
As I keep saying, this isn’t going to be a game-changer. Yes, Pollard should have included it, no matter how much work it took to redo whatever section of the report it fit into. But how does it really change Pollard’s position on the he said./she said thing? If he didn’t trust “Hugs” Boaden already, why would a letter from her lawyer change his mind? If he already trusted her word, then he would have slammed Thompson instead of recommending Stephen Mitchell as the sacrificial lamb put out to pasture on a platinum-studded pension after six months of remaining on the job at full whack to train his successor, and that Boaden get shifted sideways at an increased salary. I don’t see why a letter reiterating what we already knew was Boaden’s position should suddenly burst the scandal wide open. In fact, I’d suggest that the fact that Pollard left out her letter is evidence of just how much he felt she’d lied to him. He’s not changing his final opinion on the matter, is he? I suppose I should be taking a wait-and-see attitude, in case he breaks down in a few days and confesses he’s corrupt and was protecting Thompson, but….no. He went in prepared to protect all the top mandarins and find a scapegoat in order to provide a talisman for the BBC’s public image, and this isn’t enough to affect that. If Pollard admits to some sort of corruption, then this goes much higher up than him. Not going to happen.
Not that I’m thinking Thompson is any more innocent. Not even remotely. We simply have he said/she said/she sent a letter. It’s just a shame that Pollard couldn’t bust him on it, or at least portray him as being as useless as Entwistle, whose head ultimately ended up on the spike outside Broadcasting House.
Pollard just dropped some low-grade fireworks for the kids to set off for a few days. He slipped up, and should take the heat for it, but really this changes nothing.
‘As I keep saying…’
—–
Indeed you do.
And, sadly, I am again forced to concede you may be right.
But if it is a ‘game’, at least the performance of a key set of players, who usually control the refs, linesmen, ball and stadium, in secret, appears laid bear for all to see.
And from the public seats, it sure is looking dirty.
http://order-order.com/2013/12/12/newsnight-on-bbc-trust-pollard-whitewash/
As even one player and one supporter ruefully conclude at the end, ‘transparent’ it is not.
And for an entity pinning its trusted status on its transparency, that may eventually prove a foundation too shaky to support all the rest it claims.
As part of my submission to the ‘Future of the BBC’ commission I cited many examples where the BBC closed down complaints based on the belief of senior directors, and the belief of the Trust in what they had been told, in secret, by un-named internal staff witnesses, without opportunity for me to challenge or even know about.
Hence the BBC being satisfied that the BBC always gets it about right because the BBC tells itself it does.
Beyond the perverse Beware of the Leopard logic and public sector self-delusion inherent to the process alone, this episode shows the core basis for all their decisions is based on a wobbling dollop of weasel jelly.
Which is now getting noted a bit more than beyond the daily editor’s log in a cabinet in the basement. And much less easily dismissed.
I, for one, will not be as keen to let them.
A Guardian protector of the BBC on Newsnight to explain it all, I see. And he backs up my statement entirely. Who could have imagined?
Hewlett said that both Thompson and Boaden can’t be right. I think they’re both lying. It’s inconceivable that Thompson had no idea what the Meirion Jones’ Savile piece was going to be about. What did Thompson – who heard all the stories about back when “it was a different time” – think they were investigating about him? Tax dodging? That he was rude to the Dalai Lama once? Thompson has to be lying. And Boaden must also be lying, either about just how much she told Thompson and when, or about not being part of the cover-up after it all went south. If she really did tell him and wasn’t helping to cover it up afterwards, how does she accept being portrayed as a liar when he’s not? Why isn’t her lawyer suing the BBC instead of merely sending a letter repeating what she already told Pollard? How does she accept being demoted (prestige-wise, certainly not salary-wise), unless she’s taking a bit of medicine for what she knows are her sins?
Hewlett’s not interested in going there. He probably can’t on Newsnight anyway, since this is really just one of those Capt. Renault scenes they do so well. So instead he waffles about it all.
And what on earth is he doing acting as the BBC’s spokesman here anyway? Paxman asks him what the BBC says in response to the tape’s release? Nobody from the BBC good enough to appear on air?
So Paxman, just as I said yesterday, is one of the high-profile Beeboids who gets to moan about how bad this looks, isn’t the BBC special for airing its dirty laundry, they’re really seriously looking into this aren’t they, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Can’t argue with most of that, so I’ll just add a few bits…
‘A Guardian protector of the BBC on Newsnight to explain it all, I see’
It does appear often that he is the only person in the whole UK the BBC feels qualified to assess media matters. Well, there was Nick Pollard, but, well… you know.
‘Hewlett said that both Thompson and Boaden can’t be right.
And all that inferred, Thing is, these were and/or are two of the top bananas in a pile of rotting fruit whose only claim to unique funding rests on trust and transparency.
Not lookin’ too optimal whichever angle is taken.
‘Why isn’t her lawyer suing the BBC instead of merely sending a letter repeating what she already told Pollard?’
Good question. Sadly, any questions seldom get answered. Good ones get excised from the record. Again, not great on the T&T front.
‘How does she accept being demoted (prestige-wise, certainly not salary-wise)’
You may have answered your own question there. As Mark Byford and others have shown, their basic motivations seem pretty consistent and well satisfied. The BBC knows its staff and what works, if with our money.
‘Hewlett’s not interested in going there. He probably can’t on Newsnight’
As the BBC’s on-call media guru, one imagines he can top up the day job quite well during the year with the on-screen pontification outings. Not interested? Can’t? Possibly… very aware of what makes chekky keep coming? He’ll be on HIGNFY next.
‘And what on earth is he doing acting as the BBC’s spokesman here anyway?’
Maybe the BBC was getting embarrassed at demanding to hold all sorts of named sacrificial goats to account when they only ever offer a weasel from a weasel? Hence getting a relative in to take one for the team.
‘Nobody from the BBC good enough to appear on air?’
Look out for large orders of bargepoles around this date with the next FoI run. They are the epitome of dual-standard hypocrisy.
‘Paxman…. gets to moan about how bad this looks…’
Yeeeeassss, but…. to the ordinary viewer, it might also be possible that his last statement resonated?
For an outfit claiming the whole world believes they are trusted and transparent, to have their top inquisitor and a family friend state clearly they are in denial on this may for some be more than significant.
Especially any looking a BBC ‘Sorry it’s late but we’re busy for some reason’ blow-off from CECUTT, based solely on the considered opinion and integrity of BBC directors.
Or, as our elected representatives have dubbed them, astoundingly uncurious, Alzheimer’s-afflicted, lying, back-stabbing ferrets in a sack.
Were I given the choice of engaging with an entity under such a leadership regime, I’d probably pass.
Uniquely, for now, those in the UK don’t.
This may change.
“Yeeeeassss, but…. to the ordinary viewer, it might also be possible that his last statement resonated?
For an outfit claiming the whole world believes they are trusted and transparent, to have their top inquisitor and a family friend state clearly they are in denial on this may for some be more than significant.
See, I think that’s the point. The BBC and Paxman know it will resonate. It’s part of the charade. And then leave it at that, because they can ultimately get away with it. Perhaps Paxman doesn’t think he’s a party to it, but that wouldn’t speak very well of him.
At most, somebody else might magically find an enormously well-paid position at one of the myriad media and production companies so many ex-Beeboids seem to end up running, or at least be granted a timely retirement with a golden parachute that might be arranged in a fashion not so obvious as to draw the complaints they got last time.
It’s too bad Nicked Emus and Jim Dandy no longer bother with us. I’d love to rub their noses in this, as they said Newsnight would be toast and the BBC would have to reform.
‘because they can ultimately get away with it.’
Still proving hard for them to shake though.
I note a 3rd Parliamentarian is on record as less than impressed, and though he (as a ratings dependent) can overplay things, Guido is now promising yet more. We shall see.
I have ceased trying to second guess Mr. Paxman in this and much else. He oscillates between apparently not caring at all, or too much. But I do think he has an eye to legacy, and being one of the top names in a once top programme in a once respected media giant brought low by such as this must rankle.
The pay-off option of course still beckons for any needing a quick sideways shuffle from the roster and spotlight, but enough people are offside now the days of doing that quietly and as a done deal may be over.
‘they said Newsnight would be toast and the BBC would have to reform.’
Really? The perils of prediction. Like BBC climate claims.
And here we are. Newsnight is not toast (if a rather nastily burned shadow of its lost past) and the BBC has not reformed.
Together they represent the oak that is the BBC.
Thing is, as the story went, losing a few branches and bending can see one weather the storm.
My woodburner may yet be served.
It’s also not going away as easily as the BBC may have hoped…
http://order-order.com/2013/12/12/culture-media-sport-committee-mp-patten-must-quit-second-member-slams-contemptuous-and-lofty-lord/
‘The BBC say they are “not getting into numbers” over the amount of media requests that Patten has turned down in the last 24 hours, but it seems he will not be able to run away from scrutiny for long…’
Imagine some hapless pol or CEO under the full beam of a Paxo even thinking of going the ‘not getting into numbers’ route?
Also have to say, the calibre of Flokker on Guido makes those here seem smart.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/56494/savile-stink-returns-pollard-report-omitted-crucial-evidence
‘Paxman commented: “It doesn’t show transparency – that’s for sure.”
The question now is whether the Commons culture and media committee will be inclined to reopen its own inquiry into the BBC.
Intrigued at the current sole comment, mind.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/steerpike/2013/12/the-pollard-penny-drops-for-lord-patten/
‘But that has not been that’
No, it has not, is not and will not.
So there’s space here, and I remain watching.
Okay, so maybe Patten’s scalp will be sacrificed, or rather he’ll get fed up and step down to pursue other fat paycheck mandarin positions with their associated pension pots. It will change nothing, but the BBC will be allowed to draw yet another line under it, and the noise will die down.
Paxman’s critical comment is just part of the kabuki performance. News of the BBC’s demise has been greatly exaggerated.
‘News of the BBC’s demise has been greatly exaggerated’
Possibly… probably.
You don’t terminate a 20,000-strong public sector £4Bpa behemoth without someone in legal reading the contracts and HR totting up the pay-off bill.
Can you imagine 8-10,000 so-called ‘journalists’ hitting the local job centre seeking comparable employment, pay, perks and pensions?
However, the self-inflicted wounds on top of the failures to cover up the others, or cover up the cover ups, don’t suggest they are in rude health for the future. It’s like the most protracted corporate suicide in history, prolonged by a unique funding structure that would get a limbless zombie to the Wimbledon finals and a ‘too big to fail’ inertia-dependency that makes most banks look like the local indy bookie going bust.
As to Mr. Patten, I think the expression is ‘fall on his sword’, as he’s left alone in the smoking room with a tumbler of Malt and a single round chambered in the Webley.
So he can shoot Hugs (Thompson is out of range) and cash in on a doubtless very nice pay-off as you say.
Losing one leader is unlucky. Two getting careless. The BBC keeps seeing its top market rates bite the dust for lying, ineptitude, or both, and even the most embedded sofa surfer may start to think something is a bit rotten to be compelled to pay £145.50 to keep the BBC in its expensive habit.
And that’s before even getting to the inaccuracy, lack of objectivity or impartiality for which they are now renowned.
We always knew this would be a cover-up.
It is worth recapping the situation – someone hacks mobile phones and it takes a Parlimentary enquiry to get to the bottom of it, including dragging Rupert Murdoch to the UK to demand answers.
Someone rapes and sexually abuses dozens of children with full collusion of the entire BBC up to the very highest levels of management, and they get to run their own enquiry. Which just turns out to be total garbage.
I think this should go further than Pattern walking away, I think he should go to jail for perjury, and the BBC should have their TV Tax cancelled and go commercial. If Brave Dave lacks the balls for that under these circumstances, then he never will grow any.
‘We always knew this would be a cover-up.’
Taken as read from the off.
This just in is interesting, not least starting with the title:
http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/will-it-go-away.html
‘He managed to remain unaware of stories about this issue in The Oldie and Sunday Mirror, and FOI inquiries during most of 2012’
Ah, that astounding uncuriosity & Alzheimer’s that secures one the highest of market rates.
‘Given that this is in writing, to Parliament, it looks a pretty firm recollection. Pollard’s position seems to be that he prefers Thompson’s recollection, and thus won’t change his findings.’
Well, that £3M inc. or plus his personal fee may get shakier if ‘findings’ ‘change’ in such a way as to suggest the whole thing was a shambolic stitch-up.
One can only wish Mr. & Mrs. T&T well with their new run-down investment. At just $3.4M.
Mr. T does of course have experience making money out of old treasures.
Again, this backs up my suspicions. Both Thompson and Boaden were lying. Although I think they were lying about different things. It sure seems like Pollard thinks the same thing, yet he still claims that there was no editorial decision to spike the Newsnight report in deference to the celebration the BBC did broadcast. He must be out of his mind. Or perhaps there was so much lying and backstabbing from all the world-class journalists and media geniuses at the BBC that he couldn’t make a solid conclusion.
‘…perhaps there was so much lying and backstabbing from all the world-class journalists and media geniuses at the BBC that he couldn’t make a solid conclusion.’
Seems the best one. If a rather expensive £3M (+ his non-refundable, non-performance-related fee) way…waste to further stiff the licence fee payer with to simply confirm it.
Especially when he knew it, and all around knew it, but only now when nailed with non ‘BBC little secret’ evidence in the public domain do they admit it.
Having before tried to spin a very different tale.
This is the uppermost tier of the the nation’s national broadcaster.
These are the people who deal in ‘belief’ more than anything else… and most of all ‘belief’ in trust and transparency; their own.
When cold, hard fact shows them all to be as bent as nine bob notes and as opaque as bathroom window.
Boaden herself provided Thompson with his line of defense, and indeed what the BBC originally claimed as the reason for ordering Rippon to drop the report. She claims to have told him that the Surrey police dropped the investigation.
So Thompson can claim he thought there was nothing in it, although he seems to have been too half-witted and innately slimey to take it up and instead pulled a Reagan. Which is probably why Pollard ultimately didn’t condemn him.
Meanwhile, the BBC had what they believed to be a good enough reason for telling Meirion Jones and Liz Mackean to stifle themselves, and threatening to “drip poison” about Peter Rippon.
Why they chose that particular instance to stop trusting their own investigative journalists and start trusting the police, I couldn’t possibly say. Nor, it seems, can Pollard.