THE POLLARD
REVIEW:REPORTDATED 18 DECEMBER 2012

ReedSmithTHE POLLARD REPORT – CONTENTSPART

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PAGE

1

Introduction

2

1

Chapter 1 The Review Process21x My Terms of Reference2

x My Approach2

x Documentation

3

x Statements

6x The Preparation of the Report

7x Acknowledgments

7

Chapter 2 The Report

8x The Approach

8x Appendices8

x Timeline

9x List of Relevant Individuals

9x The Structure of the BBC

9x The Managed Risk Programmes List

14x Editorial Guidelines

20

x Exhibits A-D
2

Summary
ofFindings,
Recommendations

Conclusions

and 22-42

3

The Newsnight Investigation and the Decision to 43-101
Discontinue it

4

The Tribute Programmes

5

Events between December 2011 and September 116-134
2012

6

The BBC’s Blog and Its Amendment

102-115-1-

135-185

PART ONE – INTRODUCTION

1.

In this part, I provide background information on the Review, set out theapproach which I have adopted and detail the various steps that I have taken to
produce my Report. I also explain how my Report is structured and set out, in
Chapter 2, certain preliminary and background matters. In part 2, I set out asummary of my key findings and recommendations.

Particular detailed

sections of my report are at parts 3 – 6.
CHAPTER 1 – THE REVIEW PROCESSMy Terms of Reference2.

On 16 October 2012, I accepted the role of Chair of an independent Review
commissioned by the BBC into the management by the BBC of a Newsnight
investigation relating to allegations of sexual abuse of children by Jimmy Savile.
The Terms of Reference for my Review were set out on 16 October 2012 andwere clarified on 1 November 2012. A copy of those Terms (as clarified) is at
Appendix 1.

My Approach
3.

The Review has been completed in nine weeks.

The process has beenchallenging. The Review has received a large number of written statements
and answers to written questions and has received, and considered, over
10,000 documents. Documents have been received by the Review from the
BBC as recently as 16 December 2012, the day before this Report.
4.

Immediately upon my acceptance of the role of Chair, I instructed Reed Smith
LLP to advise me as solicitors and secretariat to my Review. It quickly became
clear to me that the challenging timetable, the extent of documentation to beconsidered and the seriousness of the issues raised by the Review meant that I
should instruct a barrister team, in particular to assist during the interview
process. Finally, a significant amount of press interest meant that I needed-2-assistance in dealing with media enquiries and I instructed a PR agency to
assist me.
5.

I have at all times been aware that the costs of my Review are being met by the
BBC and there has been close co-ordination on costs between Reed Smith andthe BBC Legal Department.

Documentation
6.

I summarise in this section the process by which documentation was obtained
for the Review.

As I say above, the Review has received over 10,000

documents.
7.

The first step taken by the Review team was to understand the BBC’sorganisational structure, reporting lines and its editorial policies, and to collectand consider press articles concerning the subject matter of the Review, of
which there were very many. Files of emails already provided to the BBC’s
Legal Department by some of the main witnesses were sent to Reed Smith
towards the end of October and these were reviewed and analysed.

Document Returns
8.

From those documents, a list of individuals identified as potentially relevant to
the issues being investigated was put together. That list of recipients was kept
under review and names were added to it as the Review progressed. Each
identified individual was sent a ‘Document Return’ letter in which they wererequested to undertake thorough searches of all documents (whether in hard
copy or electronic format) which contained information relating to the matterswithin my Terms of Reference, and to confirm that those searches had been
carried out.1 Recipients of Document Returns were also asked to identify any

1Document Return requests were sent to Sara Beck, Helen Boaden, Neil Breakwell, Don
Cameron, Jessica Cecil, Danny Cohen, Helen Deller, Phil Dolling, Clive Edwards, George Entwistle,
Paddy Feeny, Liz Gibbons, Tom Giles, Janice Hadlow, James Hardy, Stephanie Harris, Caroline
Hawley, Peter Horrocks, Meirion Jones, David Jordan, Roger Law, Mark Linsey, Liz MacKean, Ken
MacQuarrie, Jo Mathys , Stephen Mitchell, Roger Mosey, Paul Mylrea, Lord Patten, Julian Payne,
Jeremy Paxman, Peter Rippon, Karen Rosine, Emma Swain, Mark Thompson, Helen Weaver and
Jan Younghusband.

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documents which they did have but could no longer locate. All individuals who
were sent Document Returns completed them.
9.

The two alternative versions of the Document Return are attached at Appendix
2. Version 1 was sent where I considered electronic searching (which I addressin the next section) to be necessary in respect of that individual because of anindividual’s importance or potential importance to my Review (or in a few
instances the relevant person was no longer working at the BBC, in which caseelectronic searches were necessary given that they no longer had access to
BBC systems).

Version 2 was sent where electronic searches were notconsidered necessary at the outset (but in some cases they were later carriedout as appropriate).
10. Documents located as a result of the searches certified in Document Returns
were provided to the BBC’s Legal Department, so that redactions could bemade on two bases: (i) legal professional privilege and (ii) human rights
grounds (for example, the need to protect journalistic sources). Once reviewed
by the BBC’s Legal Department for those purposes, the documents were
provided to Reed Smith, with redactions having been made.
11. The BBC Executive’s solicitors, Field Fisher Waterhouse, have provided written
certification that each of the files of documents provided to us by the BBC
which contain redactions have been reviewed by them and that all redactions
been made appropriately on one of the two bases set out above.2
12. The documents were collated into chronological bundles by Reed Smith (withduplicates removed), and these bundles, which amounted by the end of theprocess to 18 lever arch files, were used and referred to at the witness
interviews.

2Documents produced by Lord Patten were reviewed by the BBC Trust’s lawyer with redactions madeon the grounds of legal professional privilege, and provided to Reed Smith by the Trust directly. The
appropriateness of claims to privilege in documents relating to Panorama on 22 October 2012produced by Tom Giles were certified by an external barrister.

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Archive Searching
13. So as to verify the completeness of the documentary collection process
outlined above, the BBC agreed to undertake electronic searches across anumber of individual email accounts (selected by Reed Smith) for the period
from 29 October 2011 (the date Savile died) to 30 October 2012, using keyword
searches against those emails accounts.3
14. This was a substantial, time consuming and (I understand) costly process,involving the restoration of archived email accounts and back-up tapes. Thiswas managed by a third party IT services provider engaged by the BBC. It
was, however, a process which was clearly necessary.
15. The output from those keyword searches amounted to approximately 30,000
documents, which were reviewed by Field Fisher Waterhouse and the BBC for
relevance and material requiring redaction for privilege or human rights issues.
Approximately 10,000 relevant documents were passed to Reed Smith toreview as a result of that process (and additional pertinent documents wereinserted into the chronological interview bundles).

Again, Field Fisher

Waterhouse has certified that all of the redactions made to those documents
have been made appropriately on one of the two bases set out above.
16. Reed Smith chose and then checked a 10% sample of those documents notprovided to the Review because they were considered by the BBC and Field
Fisher to be irrelevant. There were no examples found of documents wrongly
categorised as irrelevant.
17. I should also mention that the BBC accommodated requests made for sight oflegally privileged material which I considered may have been relevant for the
purposes of understanding the underlying facts. I wanted to check whether I
was missing some of the story by not seeing privileged material.

Some

documents were as a result released by the BBC to me on the basis that they3

The individuals selected were Helen Boaden, Helen Deller, George Entwistle, Meirion Jones, David
Jordan, Mark Linsey, Liz MacKean, Stephen Mitchell, Peter Rippon, Mark Thompson, Danny Cohen,
Phil Dolling, Liz Gibbons, Janice Hadlow, Hannah Livingston, Kate Mordaunt, Shaminder Nahal,
Emma Swain, Nick Vaughan-Barratt and Jan Younghusband.

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remained privileged and confidential and that their release was made only to alimited number of recipients within the Review team for the limited purpose ofchecking whether I was missing documentary material important to my terms ofreference.
Statements
18. Reed Smith sent letters to 32 potential interviewees, putting those interviewees
on notice of a potential request for interview and asking each potential
interviewee to provide a timeline of their involvement in relevant events. An
example of the letter is at Appendix 3. As a consequence of this letter, theReview received 21 timelines and/or witness statements.4

The Review

received a small number of unsolicited statements from other individuals.5 A
number of statements are included in Appendix 11.
Interviews
19. Nineteen individuals were called for interview over a six week period.

Inadvance of each interview, the interviewee was asked to provide an agreement
concerning, among other things, confirmation that any information provided tothe interviewee at or in advance of the interview, and any matter discussed at
the interview, were confidential.

While the various agreements were notprecisely the same, all had the same effect and an example of an agreement is
at Appendix 4. Every interviewee agreed to keep the agreement confidential
and not to disclose any documents, but agreed that I was able to make suchuse of the interview as I saw fit.
20. Interviewees (and/or their lawyers) were also provided with documents inadvance of their interview. These included documents which it was anticipated
4

5

These were received from Sara Beck; Helen Boaden; Don Cameron; Danny Cohen; Helen
Deller; Phil Dolling; Clive Edwards; George Entwistle; Paddy Feeny; Liz Gibbons; Tom Giles;
Stephanie Harris; Caroline Hawley; Meirion Jones; Mark Linsey; Liz MacKean; Stephen
Mitchell; Paul Mylrea; Peter Rippon; Emma Swain; Helen Weaver and Jan Younghusband.
Karen O’Connor, David Street, Michael Crick, Rodger Deyn, Bernard Murphy and Chris
Jezewski. (A further statement was received by an individual who specifically requested that
this fact be kept confidential. As this statement has not formed any part of the Review’sdeliberations, it is not mentioned here) -6-may be referred to at their interview, although this was subject to theunderstanding that other documents may be referred to, and that interviewees
would, should they wish, be afforded an opportunity to break from the interview
session to consider those before answering questions about them.
21. The interviews were transcribed and a copy of the transcript was provided
promptly to each interviewee for the purpose of correcting typographical errors.
The interviews took place at the offices of Reed Smith and the questioning was
led by Alan Maclean QC. Procedural issues were dealt with by Mr Spafford
and I also asked a number of questions at each interview. A number of theinterviews were lengthy (and three interviewees were asked to return for further
interviews, which they did) and I am very grateful to each interviewee for theirtime and co-operation.
Written Questions
22. The Review also posed a number of written questions to witnesses. Some ofthese questions were posed following interviews and others were posed toindividuals whose involvement justified questioning but not a full interview.6 In
each case, answers were provided. The BBC was also questioned in relation
to the existence of policies regarding the operation of the MRPL.
The Preparation of the Report
23. Interviews finished on 11 December 2012. Letters of Potential Criticism weresent to relevant interviewees. Following receipt of responses to these letters, I
reconsidered my preliminary findings in light of the comments made, andfinalised this report.
Acknowledgments
24. The organisation and running of the Review process within the short time
available, including obtaining and processing the significant volume of materialreferred to above, has been a considerable undertaking. I am grateful for the
6

These individuals were Ms Beck, Mr Hardy, Mr Mylrea, Mr Payne and Lord Patten.

-7-hard work of all who have contributed. In particular, I would like to thank thecounsel team of Alan Maclean QC, Richard Blakeley, Malcolm Birdling andMiranda Hill; the team at Kreab Gavin Anderson, led by Richard Constant andJames Benjamin; the transcript writers (two of whom were present on each day
of interviews), Isabel Patterson, Ciaran Morriss, Liz Swetman, Fiona Mitchie,
Annette Orzel, Georgina Vaughan, Laura Evans and Lawrence Pearce, and theteam at Reed Smith, in particular Richard Spafford, Ben Summerfield, HyunJung Kim, Cristin MacCann, Julia Fagelman and Annabel Cheng.
CHAPTER 2 – THE REPORTThe Approach
25. The report is divided into six parts. This first part provides an explanation of mymethodology, along with background information relevant to the matters
covered by this Review. This background information does not set out to be an
exhaustive summary of the matters covered, but is provided in order to assist
understanding of the matters covered in depth later in the Report.
26. The remaining parts of the report are as follows:Part Two: This part contains a summary of my findings as well as myconclusions and recommendations.
Part Three: This part examines the Newsnight investigation and the decision to
discontinue it.
Part Four: This part examines the BBC’s response to Savile’s death, including
the commissioning of tribute programmes.
Part Five: This part examines the BBC’s response to questioning about thedecision not to proceed with the Newsnight investigation in the period from
December 2011 to September 2012.

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Part Six: This part examines the BBC’s response to questions surrounding the
dropped Newsnight investigation in October 2012 and, in particular, mattersrelating to Peter Rippon’s post on the BBC Editors’ Blog.
Appendices
27. The Report has a number of appendices. The first 9 appendices support thebackground to the Report.

The remaining appendices contain relevant

statements, transcript extracts and the evidence which I consider to be relevant
to my findings.
28. The documents are arranged chronologically. Each has two numbers – thenumber at the centre of the foot of each page has been produced for the
purposes of the Report.

Where reference is made within this Report to a

document in the appendix, it can be found by reference to this number. The
number on the bottom right hand corner is the number used during the courseof witness interviews, and where a document is referred to in interview
transcripts, it may be found by reference to this number.
29. Names of potential or actual victims of Savile have been redacted from theReport and its appendices. Each individual has a code beginning with the letter‘R’ standing for Resident. There are 35 such individuals with codes from R1 to
R35.
Timeline
30. A short timeline of relevant events is at Appendix 5. This does not constitute
every event, but sets out the main milestones and the dates of particular
relevant communications.
List of Relevant Individuals
31. A list of main relevant individuals is at Appendix 6. This provides an indicationof the roles played by the key individuals named in the Report. I should notethat the Report refers to the possibility that offences were committed by-9-individuals other than Savile. These may be the subject of police investigation
and I should make it clear that I do not mean to suggest that any such offenceswere actually committed.
The Structure of the BBC
32. An understanding of the overall structure of the BBC is necessary forconsideration of the matters under review.

As such, it is helpful to briefly

summarise the key features of this structure, which I do below. I emphasisethat this is provided by way of background, and is not intended to be
exhaustive. Much of what I say here is drawn directly from publically available
information produced by the BBC.
The BBC Trust
33. The BBC is run and governed by the BBC Trust and the BBC Executive Board,the composition and functions of which were established by the BBC’s Royal
Charter.
34. The Trust is the sovereign body within the BBC and is the guardian of thelicence fee revenue. The main roles and duties of the Trust include:(a)setting the overall strategic direction of the BBC including its priorities;(b)ensuring that the independence of the BBC is maintained;(c)ensuring that the BBC observes high standards of openness andtransparency;(d)assessing the performance of the Executive Board in delivering the BBC’s
services and activities, and holding the Executive Board to account for its
performance;(e)where appropriate, conducting investigations into any activity of the BBC
which it has grounds to suspect does not comply with requirements
supervised by the Trust;- 10 -

(f)commissioning value for money investigations into specific areas of BBC
activity.

35. The BBC Trust is currently chaired by Lord Patten of Barnes.
The BBC Executive Board
36. The BBC Executive Board is the executive body of the BBC and is responsible
for managing the BBC and its day-to-day operations across the organisation,although certain of its functions are delegated to sub-committees of the Board.
Amongst other matters, the Executive Board has responsibility for:(a)delivering the BBC’s services in accordance with the priorities set by theTrust and for all aspects of operational management;(b)the direction of the BBC’s editorial and creative output;(c)the operational management of the BBC;(d)ensuring compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements placed
upon the BBC except to the extent that they relate to the affairs of theTrust or the BBC Trust Unit; and(e)accounting to the Trust for its own performance and the performance of
the BBC and its subsidiaries.

37. The Board is made up of executive directors from within the BBC and five nonexecutive directors from outside the BBC, and is chaired by the Director
General.

The Board is supported by a number of management groups,

including the BBC Direction Group, the Finance Committee, and boards at theGroup level, such as Vision and Audio & Music.

The boards of BBC

Commercial Holdings and BBC Worldwide support the Executive Board oncommercial matters.
38. The Royal Charter provides that the Director General is the chief executive
officer of the BBC; he or she is also its editor-in-chief and is therefore- 11 -

accountable for the BBC’s editorial and creative output. The Director Generalis appointed by the BBC Trust. The other Board members are appointed by aNominations

Committee

andExecutive

Board,

with

non-executive

appointments requiring approval by the BBC Trust.
BBC Operational Areas, Editorial Policy and Communications
39. The principal operational areas which manage the day to day working of the
BBC include the Director-General's Office and BBC Direction Group, Audio andMusic, BBC North, Finance and Business, Future Media, News Group,
Operations and Vision (i.e. television). The BBC also has three commercial
subsidiaries, BBC Worldwide, BBC Studios and Post Production and BBC
World News.
40. The relationships between these operational areas are summarised in thefollowing diagram, which appears on the BBC’s website:

41. I should also mention the role of Editorial Policy (or ‘EdPol’ as it was often
referred to by those who gave evidence to this Review). This sits separate
from the operational divisions and does not form, for example, part of Vision orNews. It is headed by David Jordan. In this role, Mr Jordan is responsible forthe development and implementation of the BBC's editorial policy and- 12 -

standards. He produces the BBC's editorial guidelines and provides advice to
BBC programme-makers and journalists across all BBC services on how to
produce content which complies with those guidelines. Mr Jordan is a memberof the BBC Direction Group and the News Group Board.
42. Finally, I should note that the BBC has a Communications division which is
divided into a number of teams (sometimes called ‘press teams’) which mirror
the divisional structure of the BBC. There are therefore separate teams for, forexample, News, Vision, and Audio and Music dealing with issues arising in
those areas as well as with questions raised in relation to the output from thoseareas. There is in addition a Corporate Press Office which handles issues
relating to the BBC an institution, working with the other Communications
teams as necessary.
Structure of BBC News and relevant reporting lines
43. In addition to the overall structure of the BBC, it is also helpful to provide somebackground as to the structure of the BBC News Group, and the relevant
reporting lines within this group.
44. The head of the News Group is the Director of News. Throughout the period
considered by this Review, this was Helen Boaden.
45. Viewed across the BBC, the Director of News is on the same managerial level
as the heads of other departments. Thus in November 2011, Ms Boaden wason the same ‘level’ as Mr Entwistle who was at that time Head of Vision. Thereis no reporting line between the Director of News and the Director of Vision. Ms
Boaden’s reporting line was vertical – to the Director General. The Director
General’s own reporting line is to the BBC Trust and its Chairman Lord Patten.
46. Beneath the Director of News sits a Deputy Director of News. Throughout theperiod considered by this Review, this was Stephen Mitchell. Mr Mitchell isalso Head of News Programmes. As Deputy Director of News, Mr Mitchell
reports to Ms Boaden and is, in that role, involved in dealing with a range ofstrategic issues affecting the whole of BBC News.

- 13 -As Head of News

Programmes, he is responsible for a wide range of national radio and television
news and current affairs programmes, including Newsnight and Panorama.
47. Beneath Mr Mitchell sit the editors of the news programmes. Thus Mr Mitchellis the line manager of Peter Rippon, the editor of Newsnight (who stepped
aside from his post in October 2012). There was thus a direct reporting linefrom Mr Rippon to Mr Mitchell (and then in turn from Mr Mitchell to Ms Boaden).
48. Beneath the editors are their deputy editors. Mr Rippon’s deputies in late 2011were Liz Gibbons and Shaminder Nahal. They reported to Mr Rippon, whose
own reporting line went to Mr Mitchell (and so on) as set out above.
49. Beneath the deputy editors are the programme presenters, reporters, andjournalists, such as Jeremy Paxman, Meirion Jones and Liz MacKean.
50. I should mention briefly at this juncture that each investigation by Newsnight
has an assigned Executive Producer.

The role of the Executive Producer

involves, Mr Rippon told me, having responsibility for the editorial content ofinvestigations,7 although the overall responsibility for the piece would remain
with the Editor, who would still need to know what the Executive Producer was
doing, and why.8
The Managed Risk Programmes List
51. The BBC’s Managed Risk Programmes List (“MRPL”), sometimes incorrectly
referred to within the BBC as the ‘MPRL’ or ‘Managed Programme Risk List’ isan important element in this Report. Because of this, I explain the backgroundto it and its importance in this chapter. The discussion of the MRPL later in thisReport should be read by reference to what I say below.
52. The MRPL is a mechanism by which stories or projects in any part of the
Corporation that might carry some element of risk - be they physical, legal or
reputational - are flagged up to management, if necessary right to the top. In
short, the purpose of the MRPL is to ensure that other parts of the BBC know
7
8

Exhibit A – transcript of interview with Peter Rippon (1), page 24, lines 19-20
Exhibit B - transcript of interview with Peter Rippon (1), page 26- 14 -

what one part of the BBC is doing in circumstances where what that part isdoing carries risk (whether for the BBC or for any other body). This is desirable
in such a large organisation with such broad areas of operation.
53. The MRPL is a relatively recent addition to the BBC’s tools for editorial
management.

It was introduced in the post-Hutton era to ensure thatknowledge of controversial or potentially risky programme content could beshared efficiently and promptly across all areas of the BBC at an appropriate
managerial level. This is so as to avoid, it could be said, sudden unpleasantsurprises.
54. I have seen an example of the full list which went to the BBC’s Editorial
Standards Board (‘ESB’) for the purposes of a meeting on 8 December 2011.
On the face of the MRPL its purpose is described as follows:9‘The Managed Risk Programme List identifies programmes to be transmitted in the
coming three months which have potential risks and also those whose production may
be sensitive during the whole of the production process up to transmission. The
programmes identified are now discussed at Divisional Boards before they are
forwarded to the ESB’.

55. It is thus apparent on the face of the list (at the ESB stage at least) that it is notconcerned solely with programmes which are to be broadcast imminently. It
applies at least to those which are to be broadcast within the next threemonths. Indeed, many programmes on the list are listed with a transmission
date of ‘TBC’.
56. The full list specifies the title, working title or ‘code title’ of each programme;
gives a synopsis of that programme; specifies the risk meriting inclusion in thelist; the transmission date or slot; states the production division (or independentcompany as the case may be) and then specifies the executive producer.
57. Examples of risk categories (taken from MRPL listings which I was providedwith) include: ‘Legal issues’; ‘High Profile’; ‘Safety’; ‘Political Sensitivity’;‘Reputational and Legal Risks’; ‘Libel’; ‘Political Controversy’; ‘Adverse publicity
for the BBC’; and ‘Cultural Sensitivities’.
9

Exhibit C- 15 -

58. It is plain that, relevantly for the purposes of this Review, reputational risk to the
BBC is a risk factor that is sufficient to require the inclusion of a programme on
the MRPL.
59. This is also evident from the BBC’s Business and Production guide for
Independent Producers.10

The description of the MRPL here is helpful. It

states:‘BBC Vision maintains a "Managed Risk Programme List". You will know that yourprogramme has been put on this List either because this will be specified in yourCommissioning Specification, or because your commissioning executive will haveinformed you. The Managed Risk Programme List operates as an early warning
system to highlight programmes with specific editorial risks, intrinsic or reputationalrisks (rather than regular concerns around Health and Safety, competitions, voting orawards which are managed through different procedures).
Intrinsic risk - for example, a programme where there's a legal issue or very difficult
Editorial Policy decisions. A factual programme involving secret filming would certainly
qualify under this definition, or a factual drama in which a living person is being
portrayed in a way they might object to.
Reputational risk - this would be any programme which, although not ostensibly
about a difficult topic, could damage the reputation of the BBC. Not intrinsically risky,
but still a programme that could attract a lot of press or public attention. …’

60. The MRPL was considered by Will Wyatt CBE in his report to the BBC inrespect of the broadcast of a trailer for the programme A Year With the Queen.
The precise circumstances in which this investigation arose are not relevant to
my Review.

His description of the MRPL and his recommendations are

however very relevant. At page 7 of his report, Mr Wyatt stated as follows:‘The BBC has a [MRPL] that is monitored at senior editorial meetings in the BBC. This
list is mainly to track programmes that have identifiable editorial dangers such as
undercover filming, possible defamation or issues of taste. However, it is also intended
to cover reputational risk to the BBC. Had this series been on the list it is possible extra
questions might have been asked about its progress and editorial oversight’.

61. It is notable that Mr Wyatt referred to reputational risk to the BBC. He went on
to recommend at pages 20-21, under the heading ‘Editorial Oversight’, asfollows:‘At the point of commissioning independent and in-house productions alike thecommissioning executive concerned should decide whether the programme carries
10

http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/production/business-and-production-guide.shtml- 16 -

sufficient editorial or reputational risk to go on the [MRPL]. Inclusion on it should meanthat the programme effectively carries a “handle with care” notice, not so that BBC staff
tread softly but to ensure that through all editorial, promotional or commercial activities
staff are aware of the possible risks attached to that programme and act accordingly.
This list should be more actively managed in the divisions’.

62. As I will explain in more detail below, it is most unfortunate that, in this case,the Savile story was not treated consistently with Mr Wyatt’s recommendation. I
repeat and endorse Mr Wyatt’s conclusion as just set out.
63. The BBC accepted Mr Wyatt’s recommendation concerning the MRPL. In its“Independent Evaluation of the BBC's Action Plan - Editorial Controls andCompliance January to March 2008”, at page 5, the BBC Trust summarised its
response as regards the MRPL as follows:‘The establishment of the Editorial Standards and Compliance Forum and the higher
profile given to the Managed Risk Programme List right across the BBC are both
welcome initiatives to help ensure that the ESB can take a clear leadership role acrossboth policy and operational editorial issues’.

64. It summarised (at page 12) the action to be taken as follows (the final two bullet
points are particularly relevant to this Report):
‘•
•

•
•

The BBC system for the MRPL is in the process of being overhauled and is
to become a more actively managed tool.
It is now reviewed as a standing item at the Editorial Standards Board rather
than the Journalism Board, to emphasise the fact that it is relevant to allparts of the BBC.
Programmes on the MRPL are flagged up for special attention throughout
their production life, including any promotional activity.
Reputational risk to the BBC has been promoted much higher up theagenda’.

65. The Trust expanded on this at pages 14-15, emphasising the important role ofthe MRPL as a “production management tool” across the BBC as a whole andthe need to pro-actively manage the list and make sure that appropriate
programmes were included on it:‘••

Hitherto the MRPL has been perceived by some as more of a mechanism for
Editorial Policy rather than also being an important production management
tool.
Given that executive producers are the group who are most involved inmanaging the detail of a programme on the Risk List it should be noted that- 17 -

•

•

•

•

some of those we spoke to were vague about how their programmes wereput on the list and by whom, and what difference it made when they were.
We accept that this sample may well have been atypical. Other executives
clearly did know when their programmes were listed and discussed the risk
issues with their line managers.
However it underlines the importance of all executive producers, from
whatever genre, understanding the “red flagging” nature of the MRPL, as
they are at the heart of managing the mitigation of risk in a programme or
output for which they are responsible.
The Risk List is just that - a list. It has no value unless its purpose and role asa “red flagging” mechanism is universally appreciated and it is used as anactive dynamic tool for monitoring and the mitigation of risk on a continuingbasis throughout the project.
We were particularly struck by the detailed proposals for the supervising anddaily management of the MRPL by the new Head of Editorial Standards andTraining in Vision’.

66. In order to function effectively, the MRPL depends on those with knowledge ofthe detail of pending programmes to put those on the list. In News, this meansthat everyone from reporters upwards must be alert to the potential risk factorsthat may be inherent in any story or investigation that is in progress. Suitablestories should be identified to editors or deputy editors at the earliest
opportunity and included in the list with a suitable description in order that otherparts of the BBC are aware of them and can take any appropriate steps.
67. The Review was told that in News the preparation of the MRPL involves a fourstage process and that in the case of Newsnight it would work as follows:(a)Newsnight’s senior journalists (in November 2011 they were the Editor, Mr
Rippon and his deputies, Ms Gibbons and Ms Nahal) would decide whichcurrent or potential stories should be put on the MRPL for Newsnight. In
the period between November and December 2011, there were anything
between five and twelve stories at any one time.

(b)That list of relevant Newsnight stories would be sent to Sara Beck, in theoffice of Mr Mitchell.

She would receive similar lists from otherprogrammes, for example Panorama and the Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme.
(c)

A combined News Programmes list would then be sent to the office of the
Director of News (Ms Boaden), where it would be combined (by Emma
Wilson, the News Group business manager or Stephanie Harris, the Head

- 18 -

of News Complaints) with other News Division lists to give a pan-News
MRPL.
(d)

Finally the pan-News MRPL would be sent to the office of the Director of
Editorial Policy, David Jordan, to be combined with similar lists from other
non-News departments such as light entertainment, comedy and sport toproduce a BBC-wide MRPL that identified potential risks from across thewhole of the BBC.

68. The BBC-wide MRPL would then be considered by the ESB.
69. At each level the list would be circulated to appropriate managers. For instanceat Level 3 the pan-News list would be circulated to members of the NewsGroup Board which would include in this case Ms Boaden and Mr Mitchell but
not Mr Rippon.
70. Given the relevance of the MRPL to the issues the Review was asked toconsider, by a letter of 10 December 2012, the Review asked the BBC whether
it had internal written guidelines setting out the criteria to be applied to adecision whether a potential news programme (including a report within a news
programme) should be included in the Managed Risk Programmes List. On 12
December a reply was received. The reply stated:11‘The BBC does not currently have in use across the BBC written guidelines which set
out the criteria to be applied to a decision whether a potential news programme(including a report within a news programme) should be included in the Managed
Programme Risk List [sic], although issues surrounding the inclusion of material on thelist are addressed amongst compliance managers and the Heads of Editorial
Standards for each of the BBC's output divisions at the monthly Editorial Standards
and Compliance Forum which is chaired by David Jordan, the Director of Editorial
Policy and Standards. We are informed that News does not hold any local or pan-BBC
written guidelines’.

71. In light of the events I discuss in subsequent chapters, it is regrettable that suchguidelines do not exist. This is surprising given the clear recommendation in
the Wyatt Report, which the BBC purported to adopt.
Editorial Guidelines
11

Exhibit D- 19 -

72. The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines are relevant to the subject matter under review,
and I make reference to them where appropriate. It is therefore helpful to give
the Guidelines some brief consideration, alongside the framework against
which they operate - in particular the BBC’s Royal Charter and Framework
Agreement.
73. The BBC's Royal Charter provides that the BBC is to serve the public interest,
and that its main object is the promotion of its public purposes, which include
sustaining citizenship and civil society.12 The Charter guarantees the editorial
independence of the BBC, and provides for the creation of a 'Framework
Agreement' between the BBC and the Secretary of State,13 which the BBC
must comply with for as long as it remains in force.14 The current Framework
Agreement was laid before Parliament in July 2006,15 and includes anobligation to ensure accuracy and impartiality in respect of all controversial
subjects.16
74. The BBC's Editorial Guidelines are created by the BBC itself. The Guidelines
state that ‘Knowledge of the Guidelines is an essential professional skill, andeveryone who makes the BBC’s content is contractually required to familiarise
themselves with them and work within them’.17
75. A number of the Guidelines are potentially of relevance.

For example the

Guidelines:(a)Specify a number of ‘Editorial Values’ which include commitments to
impartiality,

editorial

integrityandindependence,transparency,

accountability, avoiding knowingly and materially misleading audiences
and achieving due accuracy.18

12
13
14
15

16
17
18

Articles 3 and 4.
Article 49.
Article 52.
The Framework Agreement was amended in March 2010 and in February and September
2011, although these amendments are not relevant for present purposes.
Clause 44.
Para 2.2.2.
Section 1.

- 20 -

PART TWO: SUMMARYINTRODUCTION
1.

Newsnight’s abortive Jimmy Savile inquiry of 2011 started a chain of events
that was to prove disastrous for the BBC.

It led to one of the worst

management crises in the BBC’s history and contributed to further chaos that
led to the resignation of the Director General a few weeks later over the
McAlpine affair.
2.

This Report describes the events surrounding the cancellation of theNewsnight story, the broadcast of tribute programmes about Jimmy Savile
and the subsequent revelation in an ITV documentary of the very story that
Newsnight had been researching. It also looks at the response by the BBC
and its failure to explain properly what had happened.

3.

The decision to drop the original investigation was flawed and the way it was
taken was wrong but I believe it was done in good faith. It was not done toprotect the Savile tribute programmes or for any improper reason.

4.

In my view, the most worrying aspect of the Jimmy Savile story for the BBC
was not the decision to drop the story itself. It was the complete inability todeal with the events that followed. In the first few months after the Savile
investigation was halted the News Division’s management and its publicity
teams seemed to have kept a lid on the rumblings of press interest about thestory but it slowly became clear they did not have the full facts and that the
problem was not going to go away. An element of personal distrust played asignificant part in this.

5.

When the full force of the affair broke in October 2012, the BBC’s
management system proved completely incapable of dealing with it. This
Report shows that the level of chaos and confusion was even greater than
was apparent at the time. The efforts to get to the truth behind the Savile
story proved beyond the combined efforts of the senior management, legal- 22 -

department, corporate communications team and anyone else for well over amonth. Leadership and organisation seemed to be in short supply.
6.

In particular, crucial information about the basic facts of the case was notshared. Even when concerted efforts were made to understand it, no-one
seemed to grasp what should be done with the information.

7.

Efforts were hampered in part by an apparent adherence to rigid management
chains and a reluctance to bypass them. But, at the same time, large groupsof people spread across different departments were sharing partial
knowledge, suggesting courses of action and proposing amendments tostatements or to the BBC’s official position.

Great efforts were made byindividuals but there was a critical lack of leadership and of co-ordination.
8.

The fallout from Newsnight’s Savile investigation generated a great deal ofdisagreement and, in some instances, personal animosity within the BBC. It
is a complex story and it has not been easy to unravel the details. We haveexamined more than ten thousand e-mails and other documents and received
many lengthy personal statements but much of the story, inevitably, depends
on personal recollections.

We have conducted detailed interviews withnineteen individuals involved, some of the them more than once. Accounts ofthe same incidents (even in recent months) often vary considerably. Someinterviewees had strong recollections of relevant events; others did not.
9.

This document provides a summary of key events and conclusions and myrecommendations.

THE NEWSNIGHT INVESTIGATION
Background10.

Meirion Jones had a long-running interest in the Savile story.

His aunt,

Margaret Jones, was the head of Duncroft School, the establishment at theheart of the investigation, for around twenty years until 1980. As a boy, heused to visit his aunt there with his mother.

- 23 -

11.

In early 2011, Mr Jones found [R1]’s account of her life on ‘FanStory’, apublicly accessible website. [R1]’s account referred to sexual assaults by a
man named only as ‘JS’ but Mr Jones realised that this was a reference toSavile. The account matched hints from other residents – now grown women– on another social media site (Friends Reunited) that they had had similar
experiences.

12.

The death of Savile on 29 October was, according to Mr Jones, ‘the cue forme to begin my investigation in earnest’ and, on 31 October, Mr Jones pitched
the idea of investigating Savile and the Duncroft connection to his editor, Mr
Rippon.

13.

Over the following days, Hannah Livingston and Liz MacKean (who worked
with Mr Jones on the story) found contacts for around 60 ex-Duncroft
residents. Ten gave what Mr Jones described as ‘useful information’.

The Story
14.

At the very start, the investigation was solely into abuse by Savile. That isclear beyond doubt: the Newsnight team did not know (or have any reason toknow) at the time the investigation began – i.e. on 31 October 2011 - that thepolice had ever investigated Savile.

15.

However, by 3 November, in one of Ms Livingston’s first contacts with an exDuncroft resident, she was told that the police had investigated Savile a few
years earlier but that charges had not been pressed because of his age.
There was mention of a letter from the police confirming that Savile had notbeen prosecuted only because he was old and infirm.

16.

There are a number of factors that persuade me that the Newsnight
investigating team – Mr Jones, Ms MacKean and Ms Livingston – did consider
the police letter important.
(a)

There is considerable evidence of the team’s repeated efforts toconfirm the police angle, in particular, the ‘old and infirm’ strand, byattempting to track down the police letter.

- 24 -

(b)The ‘old and infirm’ strand of the police angle – the claim that the case
had been dropped because of Savile’s age – featured prominently inthe draft lead-in for the story and in the outline script itself.

(c)Proving the strand would have given a powerful boost to the credibilityof the women who reported receiving the police letter, bearing in mind
that several of them had said they had received such a letter.

17.

Questions surrounding action (or inaction) by the police and CPS soon figured
prominently in the investigation. That element of the story was not present atthe very start of the investigation but there can be no doubt that it became aprominent element in it within the first few days. It eventually became thecentral reason why Mr Rippon says he dropped the story. Mr Rippon stressedthat this was an important part of the story for him and I accept that is the
case.

18.

It seems likely that the Newsnight team heard around 14 November that the
BBC was planning to broadcast a Christmas special edition of ‘Jim’ll Fix It’. At
some point in the next few days Mr Jones brought the existence of thisplanned programme to Mr Rippon’s notice.

The MRPL
19.

Following a meeting with Mr Rippon on 21 November 2011, Mr Mitchelldecided to take the Savile story off the BBC’s Managed Risk Programmes List(“the MRPL”).

The MRPL is an important element in my Report.

It is amechanism by which stories or projects in any part of the BBC that might
carry some element of risk are flagged up to management, if necessary rightto the top.

Mr Rippon says (and I accept) that he was not party to thedecision to take the Savile story off the MRPL.
20.

It is clear that Mr Mitchell’s decision to remove the Savile story from the MRPL
is critical and it was important to establish why he had done this. Veryunfortunately, he could offer no convincing reason.

- 25 -

21.

He suggested two possible grounds for his decision (while always maintainingthat he could not remember why he had done this):(a)First, he suggested that the risk of reputational harm to the BBC was
not a relevant risk for the MRPL. This is plainly wrong, as is clear frommy discussion of the MRPL in Part I of this Report. There were manystories on the MRPL at the time whose risk was mainly or even solely
to the BBC’s own reputation.

Ms Boaden, David Jordan, George

Entwistle, Mark Thompson and Lord Patten all agreed that reputationalrisk was a very relevant factor for a story’s inclusion on the MRPL.
(b)Second, Mr Mitchell suggested that it had been too early for the Savile
story to be on the list. However, this too was unconvincing.

Thesuggestion was clearly inconsistent with many other projects that wereon the MRPL despite being several months away from transmission.
22.

Ms Boaden agreed that the decision to take the Savile story off the MRPL did
not make any sense. She said she could not account for the decision, which
she said ‘[didn’t] add up’.

Lord Patten described the decision as‘extraordinary’.
23.

My conclusions on these issues are:(a)During a meeting on 21 November, I believe that Mr Rippon and Mr
Mitchell discussed the Christmas tributes programme.

During thatmeeting, Mr Mitchell properly told Mr Rippon that the existence of thetribute programmes was irrelevant to Mr Rippon’s editorial decision. In
particular, I do not conclude that, during this meeting, Mr Mitchell put
any pressure on Mr Rippon not to run the Newsnight programme.
Following that meeting an email was sent by Liz Gibbons (who was
responsible for the MRPL in Newsnight) saying that “I know Peter andSteve talked about the Vision issues surrounding Saville [sic] so that
[removing Savile from the MRPL] sounds sensible.’(b)

Mr Mitchell’s decision to remove the Savile programme from the MRPL
was a serious mistake on his part, for which he has not been able to- 26 -

provide any credible explanation. I can only conclude that he did so
because of a misconceived notion that the programme was potentiallyso sensitive that it should not appear on the list (but that Mr Entwistle
should instead be verbally warned about the risk by Ms Boaden).
(c)While what would have happened had the Savile programme been on
the MRPL (as, in my view, it should have been) cannot be predictedwith certainty, I do think that, had it been on the MRPL, some of theissues which have followed might well have been avoided. At the very
least, that would have opened the door for appropriate conversations
among senior BBC management about the nature of the Newsnight
investigation and the ability to reach an informed decision at Vision
about the tribute programmes.

24.

Mr Mitchell was not helped by the fact that, as I discuss in Part One of my
Report, the BBC does not have any written guidelines which might haveassisted him in coming to his decision as to whether the Newsnightprogramme should be included in the MRPL. As I comment in Part One, thissurprised me, particularly when one bears in mind that this very matter was
highlighted in the Wyatt Report.

As a consequence, one of myrecommendations is that appropriate written guidelines be drawn up and put
into practice as soon as possible.
25.

On 25 November Mr Williams-Thomas told Mr Jones that Surrey Police had
confirmed to him, off the record, that they had indeed investigated Savile.
That was a big step forward. Mr Jones immediately passed the news on to Mr
Rippon. Mr Rippon replied a few minutes later stating simply: ‘Excellent. We
can then pull together the tx (transmission) plan’.

The events of 29 and 30 November 201126.

The events of 29 and 30 November are a key part of the story.

27.

Mr Rippon sent Mr Mitchell an email at 1.19pm. It was very positive andenthusiastic about the Savile story. It is clear that Mr Rippon was, when hesent this email, in a mode that can best be described as ‘full steam ahead’.

- 27 -

28.

However, there were two mistakes in this email. Mr Rippon said that two
victims have been interviewed on tape – only one had. He also said that theteam had ‘confirmed that Surrey Police carried out an extensive investigation
into the allegations but in 2009 the CPS decided not to prosecute on the
grounds that [Savile] was too old’.

At that time, that fact had not been

confirmed and was later confounded.
29.

The question of whether a telephone conversation took place between Mr
Rippon and Mr Mitchell on 29 November 2011 is important because at 9.37
a.m. on 30 November, Mr Rippon sent the following email to Mr Jones:‘Having pondered this overnight I think the key is whether we can establish
the CPS did drop the case for the reasons the women say. That makes it amuch better story. Our sources so far are just the women and a second handbriefing. Have we exhausted all chances of getting the letter?’.

30.

Clearly, therefore, Mr Rippon’s attitude to the story changed overnight and hisemail at 9.37am on 30 November established, for the first time ‘a journalistic
bar’ the story would have to surmount if it was to be broadcast.

Rathersuddenly, establishing that the CPS did not prosecute Savile because he wasold and infirm had become ‘the key’.
31.

The 30 November e-mail prompted discussions and indeed arguments
between Mr Rippon on one hand and Mr Jones and Ms MacKean on theother. It seems clear to me, though, that by this stage relationships between
Mr Rippon and his investigative team began to break down.

The 2 December lunch
32.

On Friday 2 December, Mr Rippon, Mr Mitchell, Ms Boaden, Mr Entwistle andothers attended an awards lunch organised by Women in Film and Television.
Mr Entwistle, of course, was at that time the BBC’s Director of Vision. Mr
Mitchell had, on 23 November, suggested to Ms Boaden that it would be ‘akindness to George’ to let him know the basic details of the Newsnight Savile
investigation, which she did at the lunch.

33.

Mr Entwistle told us that he did not take any action in response to Ms
Boaden’s warning. My comments on this conversation start with the fact that- 28 -

Ms Boaden had been asked by Mr Mitchell to bring the Newsnight Savile
investigation to the attention of Mr Entwistle: she clearly tried to do this before
the lunch on 2 December 2011, but it transpired that the lunch was the firstopportunity for them to speak. She was, however, delivering an importantmessage and, in my view, this was an inappropriate way to do so. It was too
casual, too fleeting and left much uncertainty about the outcome. In my view,
Mr Entwistle’s approach to what he was told at the lunch was unnecessarily
cautious and meant that an opportunity was lost. In particular, it surprised methat Mr Entwistle took no steps to review his Christmas schedule while waiting
to hear further from Ms Boaden.
34.

The story suffered a fatal blow on 9 December. The CPS provided Mr Joneswith a statement:‘Following an investigation by [Surrey] Police, the CPS reviewing lawyer advised thepolice that no further action should be taken due to lack of evidence’.

35.

The statement added:‘As this is the case, it would not be correct to say that his age and frailty was thereason for no further action being taken.’36.

This was obviously highly significant. In Mr Rippon’s eyes, of course, it meant
the story fell below the bar he had set. It was clear he would not agree to run
it.

For the Newsnight investigators, although they still believed the story

should be broadcast, there cannot have been any doubt that the CPS
statement was a disappointment and a setback to the story.
Did any inappropriate managerial pressure or consideration influence thedecision of Mr Rippon not to run the Savile story?
37.

The answer to this question is no. While there clearly were discussions about
the Savile story between Mr Rippon and his managers, Mr Mitchell and Ms
Boaden, I do not believe either of them exerted undue pressure on him.

38.

Ms MacKean and Mr Jones thought that pressure had been exerted. Mr
Jones made it clear that he believed that there was so little journalistic logic
behind Mr Rippon’s decision to drop the Savile story, that he could only have

- 29 -

been motivated by pressure caused by the Christmas tribute programmes. I
have no doubt that Mr Jones thought this, but he accepted that he had noevidence of that, and I do not agree with him.
39.

Mr Rippon has told us that the decision to drop the Savile story was his, andhis alone. I accept that the final decision was his. However, his decision was
clearly influenced by his two managers.

40.

The first was Ms Boaden. This influence arose during a meeting with Mr
Rippon on 21 November. During that conversation, Ms Boaden made it clear
to Mr Rippon that the fact that Savile was dead was not a reason for lowering
accepted editorial standards. I consider that she was fair, perhaps forcefuland decisive. The message she was clearly sending was that the bar should
not be lowered: a message that I regard as reasonable.

41.

The second person who influenced Mr Rippon was Mr Mitchell, during theirconversation on 29 November. My conclusion is that that conversation had
an important influence on the view of the strength of the Newsnight
investigation which Mr Rippon expressed the following day, 30 November
2011, which reflected a dramatic shift in the position he had expressed on 29
November. However, I have no reason to believe that what Mr Mitchell said
was inappropriate or that it was influenced by any wish on Mr Mitchell’s part toprotect the Savile tribute programmes. I conclude that it is very likely thatwhat Mr Mitchell said was motivated by Mr Mitchell’s caution about the Savile
story and his insistence on a proper and rigorous editorial process.

Why was the story not pursued after December 2011?

Was Mr Rippon’sdecision to drop the story a reasonable one?
42.

It has to be said clearly: there is no doubt, in my mind, that Mr Jones and Ms
MacKean were right about Savile. Their belief that Savile had a history ofabusing young women was correct. They provided Newsnight with cogent
evidence of this. The programme could have broken the story almost a year
before the ITV documentary revealed it.

- 30 -

43.

Mr Rippon’s decision to drop the Savile story was seriously flawed: he made abad mistake in not examining the evidence properly.

He was not only

Newsnight’s editor, he was the Executive Producer of the Savile investigation
too, in other words he had assumed the hands-on role of supervising thepiece before it went to air. I cannot understand why Mr Rippon did not give
himself the chance of viewing the central interview and reading notes of otherinterviews.
44.

I accept that Mr Rippon had, to varying degrees at different times, doubts
about the evidence that had been compiled. In some respects, this wasunderstandable, but these doubts would have carried much more weight in
my view if they had been accompanied by proper scrutiny of the evidence that
had been gathered.

45.

In the days before the Savile investigation was finally halted, Mr Rippon had
therefore, effectively, set his face against running the story. However, he told
me that, when the story was dropped, he “was kind of 60/70 plus percent
confident that the testimony we had gathered was likely to be true.”Mr

Rippon said that he might have been ‘guilty of self-censorship.’Should material derived from the Savile investigation have been provided tothe police/relevant authorities?
46.

I have taken advice on this issue. Based upon that advice, I conclude that
evidence held by the BBC would probably have been of interest to the police
and I believe that, sensibly, it should have been provided to the police. This
will be one of my recommendations.

THE TRIBUTE PROGRAMMES47.

On 29 May 2010, Mr Vaughan-Barratt sent an email to Mr Entwistle (then the
BBC’s Controller of Knowledge Commissioning), saying:“George, I understand jimmy [Savile] is very ill. We have no obit and I am not sure
we would want one. What do you think.
I have a personal interest here: my first job in TV was on a JS show – I know him welland saw the complex and sometimes conflicting nature of the man at first hand – if

- 31 -

you know what I mean! Do you have an opinion?
fascinating. But all a long time ago! N”

Mine is ironic, flawed andHe later said:“I’d feel v queasy about an obit. I saw the real truth‼!..”

48.

The day after Savile died, Mr Vaughan-Barratt sent an email to Jan
Younghusband stating:’We decided that the dark side to Jim (I worked with him for 10 years) would make it
impossible to make an honest film that could be shown close to death. But maybe
one could be made for later.

49.

Later that day Mr Entwistle agreed that there was no need for a quickly
prepared obituary. On 31 October Danny Cohen came up with a proposal tocommission a special Christmas edition of ‘Jim’ll Fix It’.

50.

Mr Entwistle was sent another e-mail, this time by Jan Younghusband, saying’I gather we didn’t prepare the obit because of the darker side of the story. So
something celebrating a particular part of his TV career is probably better than the[life] story as there are aspects of this which are hard to tell’.

51.

Mr Entwistle then replied to Mr Cohen’s e-mail about the ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ special.
Mr Entwistle did not reply to Ms Younghusband’s e-mail about ‘the darker sideof the story’. Mr Vaughan-Barratt viewed Savile’s life style as unorthodox andhis personality as ‘weird’. Ms Younghusband had no particular idea what Mr
Vaughan-Barratt had meant by “the dark side”. She had heard rumours that
Savile had mishandled charity money, knew there was speculation about his
sex life and said he seemed “a pretty weird guy”.

52.

Mr Entwistle said that he did not read the email referring to ‘the darker side of
the story’ and he does not believe it was sent in an effort to warn him. In myview the phrase carries enough impact that, if he had read the email, I think it
is highly likely that he would have spoken first to Ms Younghusband and thento Mr Vaughan-Barratt (the originator of the ‘dark side’ phrase who had
worked with Savile for many years). It is at least possible that a conversation
with Mr Vaughan-Barratt would have given Mr Entwistle some pause forthought about the planned Christmas tributes. Mr Vaughan-Barratt could, of- 32 -

course, have spoken to Mr Entwistle or emailed him direct if he had wanted toalert him further.
53.

I have seen no evidence that anyone involved in the making of the tributeprogrammes knew of any allegations against or rumours about Savile. Were
there nonetheless opportunities to discover these and to evaluate whether or
not the programmes should have been commissioned, produced, or ultimately
broadcast? In my view there were.
(a)First, the ‘dark’ or ‘darker’ side emails. In one sense this looks like a
missed opportunity for further questions to be asked.

As both Mr

Entwistle and Mr Cohen say they did not read the email each was sent,
the question is somewhat academic. I do not regard that email as a‘smoking gun’ but it indicates to me that there was knowledge, not justrumour, within BBC Vision about the unsavoury side of Savile’s
character at the time the Christmas tribute programmes were planned.
If either email had been read it was at least possible that further
questions would have followed.
(b)Second, on 28 November 2011, Mr Cohen met with Mr Mitchell. Mr
Mitchell could have taken the opportunity to tell Mr Cohen that there
was an investigation into Savile. However, there should be no need to
do so, as there was a formal mechanism in place to ensure that stories
that were brought to Vision’s attention: that is the MRPL.

(c)

The third candidate is the short conversation between Ms Boaden and
Mr Entwistle at the awards lunch on 2 December 2011 (referred toabove).

(d)

The fourth candidate, and in my view a true and most fundamental
missed opportunity, was the MRPL. The Savile story was not a fast
turnaround news piece, it could have been kept on the MRPL andindeed it should have been. It seems to me clear that the failure toensure the story was on the MRPL was a significant missed
opportunity that might have led to the BBC not showing tributeprogrammes to Savile.
- 33 -

EVENTS BETWEEN DECEMBER 2011 AND SEPTEMBER 201254.

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 Newsbut learnt no specifics of the investigation. Indeed, Mr Thompson told me thatthe various press stories which followed passed him by. I have no reason to
doubt what he told me.

55.

From December 2011, journalists approached the BBC. Immediately, there
was a confusing elision of different womens’ accounts in press responses
prompted by Mr Rippon, which was extremely unfortunate and theconsequences of this error were profound and resonated for months to come.
Press interest continued into summer 2012 and the information continued to
be provided from memory and not from source material: it appears that thiswas in part influenced by concerns about leaking to the press.

56.

On 7 September 2012 the BBC received a three page letter from ITV posing a
number of questions for response relating to Savile. This led to a response to
ITV containing the now familiar line that:“…the story was dropped for editorial reasons. Newsnight was pursuing a particularangle relating to the CPS/Police which they were unable to substantiate and which
was therefore not broadcast…”

THE BBC’S BLOG AND ITS AMENDMENT
The Briefing Note
57.

The content of the blog had its genesis in a briefing note which Mr Rippon
prepared during the morning of 2 October at Mr Mitchell’s request. Mr Rippon
was asked by Mr Mitchell to outline ‘the decision making process fromcommission to decision not to proceed, as best as you can recall’.

58.

There are a number of striking features to note. The first is that it was clear
from the outset that this briefing note could never be relied upon as a full and- 34 -

complete account of events as it was prepared at speed and on the basis of
Mr Rippon’s recall alone. Mr Rippon was not asked to go back to relevant
source material. Unfortunately, the lack of proper preparation at this stage
contributed to the later difficulties which arose in relation to the blog which
followed this briefing note. As soon as Mr Rippon had finalised the briefing
note, he turned to the preparation of a blog.
The Blog
59.

From the outset, both the briefing note and the blog were flawed documents.
The instructions given by Mr Mitchell to Mr Rippon meant that the briefing
note was most unlikely to be sufficiently reliable to meet the purpose that Mr
Mitchell quickly assigned to it. A number of people then compounded theerror by acquiescing in the production of a blog which was not a full andcompletely frank account of the decision-making process. Yet further errors
followed.

60.

Mr Rippon’s blog was published on the BBC’s Editors’ Blog site: ‘The Editors’.
There is an evident tension between the journalistic and public relations
aspects of this site. It seems to me that the BBC is not clear in its own mind
whether a blog is, or is not, part of the BBC’s journalism and, as such, subject
to usual editorial standards. If the blog was subject to editorial standards, it
clearly breached a number of these.

61.

The preparation of the blog can only be described as chaotic. The impression
given is of no particular individual being in control of and responsible for thatprocess who was charged with ensuring that the document produced was
precise and accurate.

I have also concluded that there were significant

failings in the managerial oversight of Mr Rippon’s blog.
62.

First, a relatively casual briefing note prepared, at the request of Mr Mitchell,
for internal purposes, was quickly repackaged for presentation to the public.
As Ms Boaden put it, there was a shift from ‘What do you remember Peter?
To being a blog without anybody noticing..’.

- 35 -

63.

Secondly, the error was compounded by Mr Mitchell not only immediately
categorising the briefing note as ’the detail behind our existing public position’but in causing the blog, from the outset, to omit a significant and central partof the story when he instructed Mr Rippon ’to steer away from some of theelements of witness reliability’.

64.

This lack of clear leadership in relation to the blog contributed to the lack ofclarity in the document and in respect of the blog’s purpose. A media storm
was gathering, there was significant interest in the blog within the BBC andthe blog was a public statement. In my view, the blog was clearly the BBC’s
public statement on a challenging issue and its preparation required proper
rigour and attention to detail. When clear leadership was required, it was notprovided.

65.

Inevitably, the errors in Mr Rippon’s blog began to feed into the BBC’s
responses to media requests almost immediately. The inaccuracies in theblog did not go unnoticed for long.

66.

After giving his interview on Today on 8 October 2012, Mr Entwistle received
emails from Mr Jones by Ms MacKean. Ms MacKean emailed Mr Entwistle toshare her ‘disquiet’ with ‘the handling of the Newsnight Savile story’:‘[It was not] as Peter Rippon implied in his blog, the sort of ‘celebrity exposé’ that
Newsnight would not normally go near. Our report contained serious allegations
about the behaviour of Jimmy Savile on and off BBC premises. Despite public
assurances, again [in] the blog, that we had no information that was not alreadyknown to the Surrey police, in fact we did.
Ever since the report was dropped, just ahead of it being edited, there have been
repeated misleading statements from the press office about the nature of ourinvestigation’.

67.

Mr Entwistle asked Ken MacQuarrie the Director of BBC Scotland toinvestigate the matter. Mr MacQuarrie was chosen, Mr Entwistle says, as hewas someone external to BBC News whom he could trust.

68.

Mr Mitchell and Ms Boaden took the view that, once Mr MacQuarrie had beentasked with investigating Ms MacKean’s and Mr Jones’s complaints about the- 36 -

blog, the matter was effectively out of their hands. As Mr Mitchell put it, it wasthen part of a ‘corporate’ process.
69.

The MacQuarrie process achieved little. Mr Entwistle told me that he became
convinced that it would not be possible to get an accurate account of events‘that would be bought into by the entire culture’ unless an external review was
held.

70.

The consequence was that Mr Entwistle says he reached the conclusion that:‘… the way I was going to be able to do anything about the blog was to make surethat the legal team did a forensic analysis of all the underpinning documents and thus
were able to give me a non-emotional account of what had been wrong with the
blog’.

71.

This resulted in a delay before any action was taken to correct the blog while
the BBC legal department reconstructed events from the documentarymaterial they had already gathered in order to ensure that all relevant material
had been provided to the Police.

72.

On 16 October, Mr Jones made a direct attempt to talk to Mr Entwistle. Mr
Jones requested an off-the-record conversation, which Mr Entwistle rebuffed,
he explains because any such conversation would have needed to be on therecord, but also because ‘to be frank, I didn't trust him to have an off-therecord conversation with me’.

73.

Mr Jordan recalled that Mr Entwistle spent large parts of the weekend of
20/21 October ‘closeted with lawyers’ talking, he assumed, about changes tothe blog. Over the course of this weekend, Mr Entwistle received from BBC
Legal a table listing inaccuracies they had identified in the blog.

74.

In the afternoon of 20 October, Mr Payne sent Mr Mylrea an eye-opening text
message in the context of a discussion about media queries about whether Mr
Entwistle would resign:‘Thought of the hour. PR changes blog and accepts he was wrong and goes giving
panorama a scalp. GE then goes into Select saying he backed his editor as you
would expect. Turns out he was wrong sad but he did the right thing and we all moveon???’- 37 -

75.

Two days later, after the blog correction had been made, another message
was sent from Mr Payne to Mr Mylrea saying:‘Think am going to need to brief hard today that PR blog was the basis for all our
position on this. Only way to protect GE etc. Would be good to know if they had any
corroborating views besides just that’.

76.

It seems clear to me that by 22 October, the blog had been transformed into adocument regarded by some as a means of insulating the Director Generalfrom criticism. Ms Boaden recalls, earlier in October, Mr Entwistle as sayingthat he was going to do a public statement “that makes it impossible for Peter[Rippon] not to resign”.

In the meeting when Mr Entwistle said that, Ms

Boaden says that she offered to take public responsibility and resign ifnecessary, but that Mr Entwistle refused to accept her resignation.
77.

These were clearly very challenging times in the BBC: but it is in those times
that leadership is required. It is clear that the BBC was thrown into disarrayby the errors in the blog and had no structure in place to deal with them.
What is marked, however, is both the time it took for the errors to beaddressed and the fact that, for some time at least, no one individual fully
stepped up and took responsibility for the issue. I am, in this context, criticalof Mr Entwistle, who became aware of issues with the blog at an early stage
and who, while not inactive, appears to have taken a long time to take any
real control of the issues.

78.

Likewise, I am surprised that Ms Boaden does not appear to have taken amore pro-active role. I acknowledge that she was not on the gold team set up
by Mr Entwistle on 11 October, but it was clear that a significant part of thedivision she headed was in virtual meltdown, and I would have expected her
to have taken a more active role in resolving things.

In correspondence

between the Review and Ms Boaden’s lawyers, arguments were raised that it
would be highly unfair to criticise her and to attribute any failings to her during
this period, but I think that, given her position, she should have taken greater
responsibility. Mr Mitchell was – for a time – involved, but unfortunately his
actions do not seem to have made a significant contribution to resolving theBBC’s difficulties.

- 38 -

RECOMMENDATIONS
79.

The BBC’s news and editorial management needs to be reviewed. That is a
key job for the acting and designate Directors General. It is certainly not thecase that everything in BBC News management needs repair. There havebeen two immensely damaging failures in Savile and McAlpine, with the firstpaving the way for the second, but BBC News has continued to do
outstanding work and I do not suggest it needs to be torn down brick by brick.
But it must be right to understand and repair the parts that have let down thewhole.

80.

That examination ought to start at the top. I do question whether the Director
General’s status as ‘editor in chief’ is of continuing utility. At present, the roleseems to me to bring ultimate responsibility without the practical ability to stepin at an early enough stage and make a significant difference if required.

81.

Several witnesses (including the current Director of News) told us they
believed the Savile affair – and in particular the BBC’s poor handling of it after
the investigation was halted – would not have happened (or at least would nothave been so damaging) if the role of Deputy Director General once occupied
by Mark Byford had still been in existence.

The role was abolished as,

essentially, a high profile cost saving about two years ago. It may not be right
simply to recreate that role, but the roles and responsibilities at the top of the
BBC and how it interacts with the News Division need examining.
82.

BBC News depends on delegated editorial authority and in an organisation ofsuch size that is inevitable and appropriate. However, there needs to be aneffective way of dealing with problems when they arise. It is clear to me thatin the Savile case that did not happen. One problem was an adherence to too‘rigid’ and structured a way of referring things up the management chains anda reluctance to bypass them.

This problem needs to be recognised andaddressed.
83.

Similarly, a culture of ‘waiting to be told’ seems to have played a significant
part in the problems I have described. Fostering more inquisitiveness andinitiative at all levels would have helped.
- 39 -

84.

The system must also be able effectively to anticipate problems. It is clear tome that there were difficulties within the Newsnight team before the problem
with the Savile investigation developed.

Where there are, for example,

concerns that an editor may be losing the confidence of staff those concerns
need to be addressed, and not left to fester.
85.

The MRPL is a valuable tool for sharing of important information but it needs
to be made to work more effectively. It must be less of a box-ticking exercise
and more informative. I have a concern that there may be too many stories
on the list and not enough information about them, with a risk that the really
important wood is hidden by too many trees. As the MRPL currently exists it
seems to me that it would be difficult to have a useful discussion about it oreasily to pick out the really important items. The BBC has obviously put a lotof thought and effort into the MRPL but it still needs more work as, indeed, theWyatt Report suggested. It should be properly defined in writing and all those
whose work is affected by it need to understand what it is for and how it
works. The fact that the editor of Newsnight described it as ‘a bureaucratic
nicety’ illustrates that there is much to do on this front. Thought should begiven to what role the MRPL could usefully play in ‘quick turnround’ stories
and even daily news.

It may be that a ‘live’ online version (though withrestricted access) would be one answer.
86.

The principle of sharing full information must be embraced. We heard no
good reason for ‘Chinese Walls’. There would have been no danger in Ms
Boaden giving Mr Entwistle a complete briefing about the Savile investigation.
The theoretical fear that someone might then put undue pressure on someone
in return is not a good enough reason for not sharing important information in
the first place.

87.

I found it interesting that many of the people involved in this story seem tohave spent all or nearly all of their working lives at the BBC. There is no easyor quick solution to this – if indeed a ‘solution’ is required at all – but to mymind it does raise a question about the insularity of some people within the
BBC and whether all parts of it are sufficiently open to outside industry
practices and attitudes. SimilarIy, I got the impression that in some quarters- 40 -

there is a lack of awareness about the rest of the BBC coupled with a fierce
loyalty to an individual programme or team rather than to the BBC itself; notnecessarily a defect in itself but a feature which poses dangers for the BBC if
taken too far.
88.

The BBC needs to decide what their blogs are for, particularly Editor’s blogs.
Are they a true journalistic outlet, in which case they must meet BBC editorial
standards and the Press Office should not be involved with them. Or are theya public information device? If so, that needs to be made clear to thosewriting them, approving them and reading them. Do they get many readers?
Are they more trouble than they’re worth? I have some doubts as to whether
they are genuinely a useful tool for accountability.

89.

The BBC needs to look again at its practices for handing material to thepolice. The Newsnight Savile investigation produced an extremely unusualissue – a story that was not deemed convincing enough for broadcast yet
included material that the police should have been given. It is unlikely such asituation will occur often but the wider issue about how and when material
should be handed to the police needs to be considered, both as a matter oflaw and as a matter of good practice.

90.

Finally, I offer a journalist’s take on some relatively straightforward but very
important lessons that should be learnt from the Savile experience.
Employ good journalists and have faith in them. Gather credible
evidence and rely on it.



Recognisethatpersonal

relationships

and

trust

are

indispensable.


Have editorial executives who inspire confidence and loyalty inprogramme staff.

Insist on mature and open discussions about the strength ofstories.

- 41 -



Be ready to collect more evidence if what is gathered is notenough.



Be prepared to hand over a story to another programme if itneeds more work (it won’t happen often and it goes against thegrain for many people but it would have been the perfectsolution here. Panorama could have broken the Savile story
even though Newsnight had decided not to run it).



Don’t let a poisonous atmosphere develop on programme
teams.

You can’t lay down procedures that stop people leaking. You
can only try to persuade people that it’s a corrosive practice,which it is.



Challenging decisions is good.

No-one has a monopoly on

wisdom. There shouldn’t be a rigid and unapproachable
structure.

- 42 -

PART THREE – THE NEWSNIGHT INVESTIGATION AND THE DECISION TO
DISCONTINUE IT
1.

This part deals with the evidence presented to the Review about the Newsnight
Savile investigation and the decision to end it without running a story. Most of
the first chapter is a narrative of the way the investigation unfolded and thedisagreements that developed about it.

In the second chapter I give myconclusions as to why the story was not run and whether there were any
failings in the management of the investigation.
PART THREE – CHAPTER ONE: THE INVESTIGATIONMr Jones’s personal interest in the Savile case2.

Meirion Jones had a long-running interest in the Savile story.

His aunt,

Margaret Jones, was the head of Duncroft School, the establishment at theheart of the investigation, for around twenty years until 1980. As a boy, heused to visit his aunt there with his mother.
3.

During these visits Mr Jones apparently became aware of Savile’s visits to
Duncroft. He saw him there at least six times between 1970 and 1976. He told
me that he saw Savile take out a group of young teenage girls from Duncroft in
his Rolls Royce convertible. Although he never witnessed Savile taking out agirl on her own – as opposed to in a group – his mother apparently did andmentioned her concern about this at the time to the headmistress, Ms Jones.1

4.

Mr Jones told me that, because of these experiences, he had a personal
interest in trying to ensure that, if there was a story to be told about Savile andDuncroft, he would tell it.2 For several years, he had kept an eye out for signsof such a story developing.

5.

In early 2011, Mr Jones found [R1]’s account of her life on ‘FanStory’, a publicly
accessible website. It appears to have struck a chord, fitting in with the images
he had remembered and bringing back the ‘voices and catchphrases’ of1
2

10/033 paragraph 4.4
10/034 paragraph 4.7- 43 -

Duncroft staff.3 [R1]’s account referred to sexual assaults by a man named
only as ‘JS’4 but Mr Jones realised that this was a reference to Savile. The
account matched hints from other residents – now grown women – on anothersocial media site (Friends Reunited) that they had had similar experiences.
There were also references on that site to a police investigation having takenplace at some stage.5
6.

In July 2011 Mr Jones was working on a story with Mark Williams-Thomas, aformer detective and specialist in the field of child abuse. Mr Jones discussed
the Savile story with Mr Williams-Thomas, who agreed to ‘dig around’,6 and tolook into whether such a police investigation might have taken place.7

Mr

Jones told me that, around July 2011, he mentioned the Savile story to his
Newsnight colleague Liz MacKean.8 The death of Savile on 29 October was,according to Mr Jones, ‘the cue for me to begin my investigation in earnest’9 .
31 October – Mr Jones pitches the story
7.

On 31 October, Mr Jones pitched the idea of investigating Savile and theDuncroft connection to his editor, Peter Rippon.

Mr Jones described Mr

Rippon’s response as ‘enthusiastic’ and said Mr Rippon ‘rightly’ asked to see
the online memoir of [R1].10 Mr Rippon recalled the meeting differently, saying
he was ‘quite lukewarm’ about the story, although he could not remember the
precise words he used.11 Mr Rippon recalled that he told Mr Jones that heshould not prioritise work on it.12

It is difficult to be certain who is right.

However, as I will discuss below, the evidence suggests that Mr Rippon’s
attitude to the Savile story fluctuated during the relevant period between
cautious and enthusiastic.

Mr Rippon sought, during his evidence to the

Review, to present himself as generally cautious and unenthusiastic about the3

10/034 paragraph 4.13
12/0115
12/030- 12/032
6
10/034 paragraph 4.14
7
11/141 lines 12 - 148
10/034 paragraph 4.14
9
10/035 paragraph 5.2
10
11/140 lines 21 -23
11
11/33712
11/338 – 11/339
4- 44 -

Savile investigation. However, my conclusion was that he overdid this: his
attitude and level of enthusiasm actually appears to have fluctuated.
8.

On 31 October, Mr Jones sent an e-mail to the editor of Panorama, Tom Giles,
alerting him to the Savile story.13 It is not clear whether he sent this email
before or after his discussion with Mr Rippon. There are two interesting points
about this email:First, Mr Jones says that Savile would allegedly take ‘14 year old girls on
unescorted outings to TVC [Television Centre] and the like and then molest
them with his friends’. So, from the earliest communication about the Savile
story the accusations being made included (i) allegations of abuse on BBC
premises and (ii) allegations that the abuse was committed not only by
Savile but by his (unnamed) ‘friends’.


9.

Second, there is no mention of the police having investigated Savile.

Early that afternoon, Mr Jones, as requested, sent Mr Rippon an extract fromthe ‘web memoir’ of [R1].14 This extract is much longer than his email to Mr
Giles, but the same two points are worth noting:First, the extract from the memoir explicitly set out allegations of abusecommitted on BBC premises. In addition, allegations were made not only
about Savile but also about two other celebrities, including one referred toas ‘G’. These two aspects of the story were thus present from the outset
and would have been apparent to a reasonably careful reader of theextract from the web memoir.

Second, the extract contains no reference to the police having investigatedSavile. This aspect of the story was thus not present from the very outset.
Both Mr Jones and Ms MacKean referred to this and said that this was
because [R1] had not contacted the police.15 This latter point would not
however have been apparent to someone (such as Mr Rippon) who simply
read the web memoir.

13

12/00912/011 – 12/012
15
10/035 paragraph 5.4; 10/072 paragraph 2
14- 45 -

10. Mr Rippon told us that reading the extract from [R1]’s memoir did not warm him
to the story.16 Mr Jones had mentioned to him that the residents at Duncroft
were ‘often people who had issues with the police..(and)..antisocial
behaviour’.17 Mr Rippon also noted that [R1] had suggested that she had beenon ‘Lithium’18 at the time and so had (in her words) ‘very little recollection’ of anincident in which she was allegedly abused by Savile.19 Mr Rippon said he did
not recall making any judgement about whether the story at that stage wasconcerned with allegations of abuse on BBC premises.20
11. Mr Rippon told me that he did not know at this stage whether Mr Jones wasplanning to look into the story further.21 However, Mr Rippon plainly allowed Mr
Jones the freedom to pursue the investigation and he did so.
2-8 November: Gathering the evidence
12. Mr Rippon wanted to involve Ms MacKean. On 2 November she e-mailed him
outlining two possible stories for her to pursue, including Savile. He responded
the following day saying ‘Lets do the JS story with Mei [i.e. Mr Jones] first’.22 Mr
Rippon told us that this was because, between the original pitch for the story
and 2 November, Mr Jones had come back to him with information that morethan one woman was involved and that there were suggestions, as I discuss
below, that the police had investigated but had taken no action because ofSavile’s age.23
13. Although Mr Jones was clearly the driving force behind the investigation, healso had several other projects on his plate and was abroad for most of the firsthalf of November 2011.24 However, he kept in close touch with Ms MacKean.

16

11/338
11/338 lines 10-12
18
11/338 lines 6-7
19
12/01120
11/36121
11/339 lines 10-1122
12/01823
11/340 lines 13-20
24
10/035 – 10/036
17- 46 -

They were also able to call on the support of a BBC trainee, Hannah Livingston,
who was on attachment to Newsnight.25
14. Over the following days, Ms Livingston and Ms MacKean found contacts foraround 60 ex-Duncroft residents. Ten gave what Mr Jones described as ‘useful
information’; five reported that they had been abused by Savile at Duncroft andanother reported that there had been abuse by Savile at the Stoke Mandeville
Hospital.26
15. One of Ms Livingston’s earliest notes, on 3 November, recorded a conversation
with [R6].27 According to this note, [R6] said that she ‘received a letter from
Surrey police asking her for information.

She didn’t respond…Found out

through [another Duncroft resident] that they didn’t proceed because they
thought Savile was too old’.
16. The apparent existence of a letter from Surrey police in those terms was not an
aspect to the story which had been mentioned in [R1]’s account. It is, however,clear that this was uncovered early on in the investigation and that it quickly
became an important element of it. Its significance is obvious – the claim wasthat not only had the police carried out an investigation against Savile but,moreover, that they had not pursued him because (and the implication was only
because) of his age and infirmity.
17. According to Mr Rippon, this was the basis for his heightened level of interest in
the story in his e-mail to Ms MacKean on 3 November telling her to ‘do the JS
story with Mei first’.28 Ms MacKean replied that the story ‘sounds really strong’saying that she would aim to talk to some of the other women affected thefollowing week.29
18. On 4 November Mr Jones told Mr Williams-Thomas in an e-mail that he was‘very keen’ for him to be involved in the story as a consultant and expert.30 Mr
Jones clearly felt that Mr Williams-Thomas (a former Surrey police officer)
25

10/035 paragraph 5.5
10/035 paragraph 5.7
27
12/01728
11/340 lines 13-20
29
12/01830
12/020; 10/036 paragraph 5.11
26

- 47 -

would be useful in finding out the extent of that force’s involvement in any
previous Savile investigation.31
19. By this time, there had been contact between the Newsnight team and severalof the ex Duncroft residents. Mr Jones wrote: ‘we now know that Surrey Police
investigated Savile and interviewed many of the girls… but they told them that
he was too old so they weren’t going to press charges’.32 I do not think that Mr
Jones was over-stating the position: there must have been further confirmationfrom other residents of this point and the team might have strengthened theirknowledge of this through posts on Friends Reunited. Mr Jones told me that hethought by this stage three or four residents had told them about the police
investigation and the fact that it had been dropped.33 This lends support to Mr
Rippon’s evidence that he had been informed about this particular angle to thestory by the time he told Ms MacKean to push ahead on 3 November.34
20. On 8 November, Ms Livingston reported details of a conversation with anothervictim, [R2] in an email which also discussed Ms Livingston’s planned attempts
to locate ‘the police letter’.35

A review of the interview note produced by Ms

Livingston indicates that one of the first things mentioned to the Newsnightteam by [R2] was that she had ‘received a letter saying they weren’t
prosecuting JS because of his age’.36 [R2] also referred to a trip to Television
Centre although she did not say that abuse took place there.37
9 November: First recorded opposition to the story
21. On 9 November Ms MacKean told Mr Jones in an email about a meeting with
Mr Rippon and one of his deputies, Liz Gibbons, in which Ms Gibbons statedher opposition to the Savile story ‘on grounds of taste’.38

In a later e-mail to afriend Ms Gibbons said ‘I was on holiday when [the Savile programme] wascommissioned and I issued lots of expletives when I got back and found out we31

10/036 paragraph 5.11
12/02033
11/142 lines 21-24
34
11/340 lines 13-20
35
12/02136
12/02237
12/023 – 12/024
38
12/02632- 48 -

were doing it. Personally I wouldn’t have gone near it in the first place and I wasvery supportive of the decision to drop it, for a host of reasons.’39
22. Ms MacKean told me that Ms Gibbons had opposed the story, among otherreasons, because of how recently Savile had died.40 Ms MacKean’s e-mail of 9
November said that she persuaded Ms Gibbons around to the idea of running
the story ‘esp (especially) given [the] police line’.41 She also added ‘PR agrees
that it’s worth it, but [of] course they’re concerned about women’s credibility’.
During her interview, Ms MacKean could not remember whether ‘the police line’
was a reference to whether there had been a police investigation at all, or that it
had been dropped because of Savile’s age or infirmity.42 At this stage theNewsnight team was following both lines of inquiry.
23. Ms MacKean told us that Ms Gibbons’s and Mr Rippon’s concerns about thecredibility of the witness were understandable and indeed were ‘a real issue
with these old cases’.43 She said that, given this issue, she would not havebeen satisfied with a single on-camera interview, however credible it had
seemed, without substantial supporting evidence. In her view, the Newsnightteam ultimately succeeded in providing that.44
9 November onwards: following up on the “Police Letter”
24. The investigation pressed on and gathered further accounts of Savile’s abuseof victims at Duncroft and elsewhere. At this relatively early stage Ms Livingston
had had most, if not all, of the personal contact with the women. Mr Rippon
was later to express concern about the fact that the interviews were carried out
initially by Ms Livingston (because of her relative inexperience) and on thetelephone rather than face to face.45 Ms MacKean told us, however, that by theend of the investigation she had herself spoken to all but one of the women.46

39

12/258
11/21141
12/02642
11/212 – 11/213
43
11/214 line 7
44
11/241 – 11/215
45
11/355 – 11/357
46
11/216 lines 12-24
40- 49 -

In any event, both Mr Jones and Ms MacKean clearly thought very highly of Ms
Livingston.
25. Mr Jones spoke to [R1] and secured her agreement to do an on-camera
interview. He described this as ‘a really important development in terms ofmaking the piece a viable news story’.47
26. The importance of the police line was also something that Ms Livingston wasalive to. In an e-mail on 9 November she listed matters under the heading‘What definitely needs confirming’.48 These comprised the two strands of thepolice angle: first ‘[t]he presence of a police investigation’ and second ‘..a letter[that a few of the Duncroft residents]..received from the police saying that there
would be no further action taken against Mr Savile because of his age’.
27. Mr Jones emphasised on a number of occasions during his interviews that heregarded the first of these strands as important but not the second.49

His

explanation was that the presence of a police investigation would demonstratethat the complaints had been taken seriously and that it would corroborate thewomen’s accounts.50 But he told me that, in his view, the existence of the ‘oldand infirm’ police letter (my phrase) ‘doesn’t assume any importance in thestory’51 and that it was ‘not an important element’ in the story.52 I do not accept
his view. Not only do the continuing attempts to locate the police letter clearlysuggest that this was seen as important by the team, but it is not logical tosuggest that the second strand was not important: if proven, it would havegreatly strengthened the story. It would have both given the story a powerful
additional angle (exposing possible police or CPS failings in respect of theinvestigation into a potential predatory paedophile) and given a powerful boost
to the credibility of the women who reported receiving it. One only has toimagine the celebration and relief that would have followed the production of agenuine copy of that letter. Newsnight would have had a copper-bottomed
exclusive story unchallengeable in any serious respect.
47

10/035 paragraph 5.6
12/02749
For example: 11/144 – 11/146; 11/160 – 11/162
50
11/14951
11/144 lines 7-9
52
11/144 lines 13-15
48- 50 -

28. Ms MacKean, in her evidence, was a lot less keen to play down the importanceof finding the police letter. She acknowledged that both police strands wereseparate and important, although she too said that, in her view, the women’s
credibility did not depend on the letter turning up.53
29. As the investigation continued, [R2] became the chief focus of efforts touncover the police letter. She told the Newsnight team that she had received it
and on one occasion said that she had actually e-mailed a copy to Newsnight.54
Nothing came of this. Ms MacKean accepted that, even though she had doubts
about [R2]’s credibility and felt at times she was being ‘teased’ by her about theexistence of the police letter, it nonetheless remained an important element of
the story. 55
30. There is, however, an important point to make here. I am confident that theNewsnight team did think that the police letter was important. But that does notnecessarily mean that the police letter was essential to the story or that thestory could not have been made to stand up without it. The best evidence forthat, of course, is the ITV ‘Exposure’ documentary that was broadcast almost ayear later. That did not rely on a police letter or any suggestion that Savile was
not prosecuted because of age or infirmity, but presented very strong evidence
that he was a predatory paedophile.
11 November: the first reference to the MRPL
31. On 11 November an e-mail was sent by David Gibson, a journalist working inthe ‘Impact Team’ (which essentially ensures that big stories covered by one
BBC news programme are reported by others within the BBC) to Sara Beck
(who works for Mr Rippon’s line manager, Stephen Mitchell). Mr Gibson wrotethat he had heard that Newsnight was working on ‘some sort of Jimmy Savile
expose for a couple of weeks time’ and that this ‘[m]ight need to be on [the]MRPL’.56 I have provided an explanation of the MRPL in Part One.

53

11/210{11/217 lines 11-15
55
11/21756
12/03354- 51 -

32. On 11 November, in reply to Mr Gibson’s e-mail,57 Ms Beck said ‘It is, thanks’.
So, as at 11 November, the Savile story was on the Newsnight MRPL. Ms Beckwas not entirely sure when the Savile programme went on the MRPL. She
considered that it is likely that it went on at the beginning of November at therequest of Mr Rippon.58
14 November: interview with [R1]33. Newsnight’s interview with [R1] was scheduled for 14 November. That morning
Mr Rippon e-mailed Mr Jones asking ‘How are we getting on with corroboration
re Savile? MWT [Mark Williams-Thomas] come up with anything?’59 By‘corroboration’ Mr Rippon was obviously referring to the police inquiry. Mr
Jones told me that he regards the e-mail as referring simply to the question
about whether there had been a police inquiry at all,60 but his reply to Mr
Rippon went further, mentioning that, of the ‘perhaps dozen girls’ who
Newsnight knew about, ‘they all got [a] letter saying [the] CPS decided not toproceed against ‘the gentleman’ because he was too old and infirm’.61

Mr

Rippon would therefore have had every reason to think that the police letter
was going to materialise and that it would play an important role in Newsnight’s
Savile story.

At this stage, no-one (including Mr Jones) appeared to havesuggested otherwise.
34. The interview with [R1] was carried out by Ms MacKean. Mr Jones and Ms
Livingston were present. Ms MacKean said that, following the interview, theteam left ‘in general agreement that her interview was very strong, and sheherself was very credible’.62
35. Ms MacKean also said in her interview, when asked how she judged [R1]’s
credibility: ‘Very high.

She just seemed believable.

She didn’t pretend toremember things she couldn’t remember … she just radiated a woman who had
had a hard life who was kind of cynical and didn’t expect to be believed
57

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10/001 – 10/002
59
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58- 52 -

necessarily but was telling her story. And I found her story compelling and I
believed her’.63
36. Mr Jones said the following: ‘We all agreed afterwards that [R1]’s account ofabuse by Savile was essentially credible despite all the difficulties she hadgone through’.64
The position after the [R1] interview
37. It seems likely that the Newsnight team heard on 14 November that the BBC
was planning to broadcast a Christmas special edition of ‘Jim’ll Fix It’. At somepoint in the next few days Mr Jones brought the existence of this planned
programme to Mr Rippon’s notice.
38. On 16 November, Ms MacKean sent an e-mail to Ms Livingston in which she
said ‘There’s more enthusiasm for the story in the office, which is good’.65
When asked about this, Ms MacKean said that, after the interview with [R1],‘we would have marched into the office and very positively said “we’ve done agreat interview’’’.66 According to Ms MacKean this was said both to Mr Rippon
and Ms Gibbons. She said ‘it felt great, this is more of a goer now’.67
39. It should be noted, however, that notwithstanding this progress, Ms MacKean
accepted that the letter from the police was still ‘an important part of thejigsaw’68 and an element of the story that needed to be bottomed out.
40. Mr Rippon gave us a different story.

He did not accept that the interview

increased his confidence in the strength of the story. He also said he had been‘slightly nervous’ about doing the interview at that time but that he had agreed
to it because, he recalls, Mr Jones had described [R1] as ‘flaky’,69 somethingwhich Mr Jones denied. Mr Rippon also told us he had been concerned that, if

63

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10/037 paragraph 6.6
6512/03666
11/218 – 11/219
67
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64- 53 -

the story eventually did not run, [R1] would have been put through a difficult
experience (the interview) unnecessarily.70
41. After the interview, the investigation team continued its efforts to contact ex
Duncroft residents. Ms Livingston was attempting to find out the identity of thegirl alleged to have been the victim of ‘G’ (as he was referred to in the web
memoir), which the team now knew to be a reference to Gary Glitter. This
alleged incident had taken place on BBC premises after a show presented by
Savile. [R1] had given the team a potential lead and Ms Livingston followed
this up. Ms Livingston established that the programme in question was actually‘Clunk Click’, a programme fronted by Savile but on which Gary Glitter had
appeared.71
42. On 17 November Ms MacKean e-mailed Mr Jones and Ms Livingston to say
she had now heard from six ex Duncroft residents but that ‘None can help withcops unfortunately’.72 It is clear that the police line remained an important partof the investigation. Ms MacKean also said that one of the residents, [R3], hadagreed to do an on-camera interview.
18 to 22 November: Meeting Between Mr Rippon and Mr Mitchell; The Savile
Story is Removed From The MRPL
43. On 18 November Ms Beck sent Ms Gibbons the latest version of the MRPL for
Newsnight.73
44. The list included an entry for ‘Newsnight: Jimmy Saville [sic]’, described as‘Investigation by Liz McKean [sic]’. The transmission date was ‘TBC’ (as was
the case for the four other Newsnight items on the list).

The Executive

Producer was listed as ‘Peter Rippon’ and the grounds for risk were said to be‘Legal/taste’.74

70

11/34912/03872
12/03773
12/040- 041
74
12/040- 041
71- 54 -

45. On 21 November Ms Gibbons sent Ms Beck an updated list which included
Savile and a number of further Newsnight stories (all of which had thetransmission date as ‘TBC’).75
Savile Is Taken Off the MRPL
46. At 9.41 a.m. on 22 November, Ms Beck replied to Ms Gibbons saying:‘Just so you know…. have taken Jimmy Saville [sic] off for now and will putback on when it’s imminent. The document goes quite far – in Vision etc – andwe thought it might be best to keep [it] off just for now.’76
47. This is clearly significant, as is Ms Gibbons’s reply:‘okay – I know Peter and Steve talked about the Vision issues surrounding
Saville [sic] so that sounds sensible’.77
48. Both Mr Rippon and Mr Mitchell agreed that they had a conversation (mostlikely on 21 November, although Mr Mitchell could not remember the day on
which this took place) at which ‘the Vision issues’ (along with other elements of
the investigation) were discussed.78
49. Mr Rippon was clear that the question of whether the Savile story should be on
the MRPL was not discussed during that conversation.79

According to Mr

Rippon, he and Mr Mitchell did discuss the possible implications of the Savile
investigation on the BBC’s plan for Christmas Savile tribute programming(which had now been made public) and Mr Mitchell told him that he should notconcern himself with any of those wider issues in deciding whether to run the
Savile story:‘He said – and this is why I can remember it quite clearly - … ‘well that’s not
an issue for you. You need to just follow the evidence on your story’, because
that’s one of the things – one of the things I think is great about the BBC andwhy I have enjoyed working there for so many years, is that we in news canmake those judgments so boldly. So it stuck in my mind because it was areminder to me why I think the BBC is a fantastic institution.’ 8075

12/044 – 12/045
12/04477
12/04478
11/345 – 11/347; 11/245 – 11/250; 11/379 – 11/281
79
11/345 – 11/347; 11/375
80
11/35076- 55 -

50. Mr Mitchell said (as was a common feature of his evidence) that he could
remember virtually nothing of this meeting.81 I found the frequency with which
Mr Mitchell’s memory failed him surprising. He was exceptionally vague as towhether Christmas tribute programmes had even been discussed in thatconversation.82

Indeed, he told me that he did not know what any ‘Vision
83

issues’ might be.

Mr Mitchell merely says in his statement: ‘At this stage Petermay have mentioned the fact that any revelations about Savile might have areputational effect on the BBC given his role as a BBC star talent’.84

Mr

Mitchell was pressed in the hope that he might recall some more details of what
was an important conversation. He told me that he could not.85 However, I am
sure that that meeting took place.
51. What is however, clear and undisputed (and accepted by Mr Mitchell) is that,after this meeting, Mr Mitchell decided to take the Savile story off the MRPL.
Mr Rippon says (and I accept) that he was not party to that decision.86 Mr
Rippon also told us that he believed he had satisfied his wider responsibilities
by raising with his line manager, Mr Mitchell, the potential impact of theNewsnight Savile story on the wider BBC.87 Again, I accept that.
52. It is clear that Mr Mitchell’s decision to remove the Savile story from the MRPL
is critical and it was important to establish why he had done this. Veryunfortunately, he could offer no convincing reason.
53. He suggested two possible grounds for his decision (while always maintainingthat he could not remember why he had done this):
54. First, he suggested that the risk of reputational harm to the BBC was not a
relevant risk for the MRPL.88 This is plainly wrong, as is clear from mydiscussion of the MRPL in Part One of this Report. There were many stories
on the MRPL at the time whose risk was mainly or even solely to the BBC’s
81

11/245 – 11/250
11/243 – 11/244; 11/245 – 11/248
83
11/247 lines 9-10, 13
84
10/086 paragraph 685
11/245 – 11/250
86
11/342 – 11/343
87
11/344 – 11/345
88
11/238 – 11/239
82- 56 -

own reputation. Ms Boaden, David Jordan, George Entwistle, Mark Thompsonand Lord Patten all agreed that reputational risk was a very relevant factor for astory’s inclusion on the MRPL.89 Indeed, Ms Boaden agreed that the Savile
story would amount to a paradigm case for inclusion on the MRPL.90 What she
told the Review about the MRPL, its function and the criteria for inclusion wasconsiderably more convincing than Mr Mitchell’s account. It was also morelogical: if a story is likely to cause harm to the BBC’s reputation it is plainly
important that the wider BBC should know about it and the MRPL is designed
specifically for that purpose.
55. Second, Mr Mitchell suggested that it had been too early for the Savile story to
be on the list.91 However, this too was unconvincing. The suggestion was
clearly inconsistent with many other projects that were on the MRPL despite
being several months away from transmission. Moreover, as I noted in Part I,
the ESB’s description of the MRPL expressly includes programmes to betransmitted within the ‘coming three months’.
56. Ms Boaden agreed that the decision to take the Savile story off the MRPL did
not make any sense.92 She said she could not account for the decision, which
she said ‘[didn’t] add up’.93

Lord Patten described the decision as‘extraordinary’.94
57. What makes Mr Mitchell’s removal of the Savile story from the list even harderto understand is that, as discussed in detail below, just a day or two later(probably on 23 November) in a meeting with his line manager, Ms Boaden, hesuggested to her that she should tell Mr Entwistle, the Director of Vision, about
the Savile story on the grounds that, if it went ahead, Mr Entwistle would needto change his Christmas schedules so as to drop any Savile tributeprogrammes.95 That seems to reinforce the probability that ‘the Vision issues’

89

11/456 – 11/461; 11/327 – 11/329; 11/001 – 11/005; 11/199; 11/072
11/01391
11/240 – 11/242
92
11/008 – 11/013
93
11/01394
11/328 lines 5-6
95
11/016 – 11/018; 11/282 – 11/285
90- 57 -

discussed between Mr Rippon and Mr Mitchell were concerned with theChristmas tribute programmes.
58. My conclusions on these issues are:

During the meeting on 21 November, I believe that Mr Rippon and Mr
Mitchell discussed the Christmas tributes programme. This is what Mr
Rippon remembers96 and Mr Mitchell said nothing to counter that.
During that meeting, Mr Mitchell properly told Mr Rippon that theexistence of the tribute programmes was irrelevant to Mr Rippon’s
editorial decision.97 In particular, I do not conclude that, during thismeeting, Mr Mitchell put any pressure on Mr Rippon not to run theNewsnight programme.

Mr Mitchell’s decision to remove the Savile programme from the MRPL
was a serious mistake on his part, for which he has not been able toprovide any credible explanation. His motivation for doing so is unclear,but I can only conclude (unfortunately without any real help from Mr
Mitchell on this point) that he did so because of a misconceived notionthat the programme was potentially so sensitive that it should notappear on the list (but that Mr Entwistle should instead be verballywarned about the risk by Ms Boaden).



While what would have happened had the Savile programme been on
the MRPL (as, in my view, it should have been) cannot be predictedwith certainty, I do think that, had it been on the MRPL, some of theissues which have followed might well have been avoided. At the very
least, that would have opened the door for appropriate conversations
among senior BBC management about the nature of the Newsnight
investigation and the ability to reach an informed decision at Vision
about the tribute programmes. As Mr Jordan pragmatically put it:-

‘So it would have been perfectly possible for News to have put this on to theManaged Risk Programme List in a disguised form which I would have known about,the Director of News would have known about, and the relevant people who weremanaging the risk would have known about without its nature being revealed to the96
97

10/095 paragraph 10
10/095 paragraph 10- 58 -

rest of the organisation…the critical thing would have been that the individuals who
are managing the risk associated with that programme would know what it was andwould know that the risks were being managed. This list is about that, it is about
making sure that happens.’ 98

59. While I view this omission as highly significant, it is important for me to statethat Mr Mitchell was not helped by the fact that, as I discussed in Part I, theBBC does not have any written guidelines which might have assisted Mr
Mitchell in coming to his decision as to whether the Newsnight programmeshould be included in the MRPL. As I commented in Part I, this surprised me,
particularly when one bears in mind that this very matter was highlighted in the
Wyatt Report. As a consequence, one of my recommendations (see Part 2) isthat appropriate written guidelines be drawn up and put into practice as soon as
possible.
18 to 24 November: the story progresses; meetings involving Helen Boaden
60. The investigation was making good progress. Archive videos of ‘Clunk Click’
were viewed to try to firm up the Gary Glitter angle. This work paid off and, on
24 November, Ms Livingston was able to identify the possible victim of abuse
by Glitter on BBC premises.99
61. Mr Jones e-mailed Mr Williams-Thomas on 19 November.

He referred toefforts being made ‘to get one of the Duncroft girls to find their letters’.100 He
went on to say ‘Most of them think they were interviewed in about 2009… andthat about a year after they were interviewed they received a letter (not naming
Savile) saying the individual had been interviewed but that CPS had decided
not to pursue the case because he was old and infirm’. Despite Mr Jones’s
claims to the contrary,101 I believe it is clear that this was still regarded by him
and his colleagues on the investigations team as an important element of thestory. Indeed, Mr Jones added ‘We’re still hoping to get one of the police/CPS
letters which would make this all a lot easier’.102

98

11/200 line 18 – 11/201 line 8
12/050100
12/042101
11/143 – 11/144
102
12/04299- 59 -

62. In another e-mail to Mr Williams-Thomas, on 22 November, Mr Jones offeredsome candid observations about the ex Duncroft residents. He said that while‘most’ were intelligent, ‘most’ were also ‘emotionally damaged’ with a ‘criminal
background’ as well as being ‘suspicious… extremely manipulative [and]difficult to deal with’.103 In his evidence Mr Jones rather played down thisdescription of the residents.104
63. On 21 November Mr Rippon met informally with Ms Boaden and the Savile
story was discussed:105


Ms Boaden told us that this was the first time she became aware of theSavile story. Unlike Mr Rippon, she does not think that the Christmas
tribute programmes were discussed (or, indeed that she was aware ofthem at the time).106



Mr Rippon told Ms Boaden that the allegations involved sexual abuse ofunderage girls by Savile.107 She was not told that there were any
allegations of abuse on BBC premises.

Ms Boaden did not consider that Mr Rippon’s attitude to the story was‘lukewarm’.108 She got the impression that he was interested in thestory but was aware of the difficulties in proving it because theallegations were old.109

Mr Rippon asked Ms Boaden if it was a problem that the story would
embarrass the BBC.110 She said that it was not and that the BBC must
always do journalism about the BBC as if it was a separate institution.111



Ms Boaden said the potential issue of ‘taste’ was not critical. What was
critical, she said, was that ‘because Jimmy Savile was dead that was
not a reason for lowering what she regarded as BBC editorial
standards.’112

Mr Rippon does not recall Ms Boaden suggesting,103

12/046 – 12/047
11/149 – 11/153
105
10/096 paragraph 11
106
11/015; 11/351
107
11/007108
11/027109
11/027 lines 17-19
110
11/027 lines 7-9
111
11/006-11/007
112
11/007 lines 21-23
104- 60 -

however, that the evidence standard needed to be as high as if Savile
was still alive (and therefore able to sue).113
64. Ms Boaden was asked about an account that she supposedly gave to Peter
Horrocks, the BBC’s Director of Global News, that she might possibly havebeen too forceful in putting her views to Mr Rippon. Ms Boaden was reported
to have said words to the effect of:‘It was possible for him to have interpreted as an instruction or a very strong
recommendation in terms of an editorial course of action’.114

65. This was referred to on the ‘Panorama’ programme of 22 October 2012. Ms
Boaden’s view on this was:‘Until the Panorama was being made, it had never occurred to me that myconversation with Peter (Rippon) had had any significant... bearing on
anything. It was only when that narrative emerged and this narrative of thehandbrake turn that immediately I started to think: was it something I did?
Because anybody with a conscience would look into their heart and think“Have I inadvertently made a difference?” And what I was sharing with Peter(Horrocks) was not “I think I said it too strongly” but “The worry is that I may
have said it too strongly”’.115
66. Ms Boaden was asked whether the gist of her conversation with Mr Rippon had
been that, despite the fact that Savile was dead, normal journalistic rules
should be observed. She replied:‘That’s exactly what it was about. And the usual rules apply and they are tricky
because of the 30-year issue, the fact these allegations go back a long time. … you
have one person’s word against another. You have… an individual who is dead so
who can’t answer back. And therefore the idea of credibility and care was really what
I was getting over too’.
‘I have to say, I don’t think it was a very forceful conversation. I think it was a rather
banal conversation, but clearly I was, you know, challenging myself because that’s
really what you have to do if you are in my job’.116

67. Ms Boaden agreed with Mr Rippon’s (much shorter) written account.
described it as follows:

113

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115
11/030116
11/030-11/031
114- 61 -

He

‘It was an ad hoc meeting in my office as part of a wider discussion about a number
of issues … I cannot recall the level of detail I set out the story to her … Savile’s
funeral was still fresh in the memory and I can recall us discussing the need to makesure that anything we put on air would stand up to the intense scrutiny it would get
because of huge numbers of our audiences who revered and were still mourning him.
We agreed on this point. It has been reported that [Ms Boaden] said in this meetingthat the evidence threshold needed to be as high as if he were alive and able to sue.
She did not say this and I am confident I would have remembered if she had … [t]hepotential scheduling issues for Vision were raised on the same terms as they werewith [Mr Mitchell]. I cannot remember if it was by me or her. I can recall her veryclearly telling me to be guided by the evidence only and that the implications for other117
parts of the BBC were irrelevant’ .

68. Mr Rippon was asked about his discussion of the ‘Vision issues’ with Ms
Boaden. Mr Rippon remembered in particular Ms Boaden ‘saying very, very
firmly, “Don’t worry about anything to do with Vision, follow the evidence andmake the judgement on the evidence”’.118 In terms of the substance of thestory, Mr Rippon told me that all he could remember her talking about was thefuneral and the ‘climate’ in which he would be making his judgment. He says
he agreed with her assessment that these factors meant the story needed toreach a ‘reasonable threshold of certainty’.119
When asked if Ms Boaden’s warnings felt like she was firing a ‘warning shot
across [his] bow’, Mr Rippon was clear that it did not.120
69. There is a different recollection between Ms Boaden and Mr Rippon about
whether the ‘Vision’ issues were actually discussed. However, if they werediscussed, it appears that the same message as had properly been given by Mr
Mitchell to Mr Rippon on 21 November, to the effect that any such issues wereirrelevant and the BBC must always do journalism about the BBC as if it were aseparate institution, was given by Ms Boaden. My conclusion on thisconversation, as a result, is that it appears to have been no more than asensible conversation between colleagues in which Ms Boaden fairly andperhaps forcefully expressed her views in a decisive manner, as would be
expected from someone in her position.

117

10/096 paragraph 11; 11/032
11/352 lines 4-12
119
11/352 lines 17-25
120
11/352 line 17
118- 62 -

70. Two days later, on 23 November, Ms Boaden spoke with Mr Mitchell. Ms
Boaden gave her account of this conversation in her interview:She did not get the impression that the CPS ‘old and infirm’ angle was a‘key’ part of the story,121 nor did Mr Mitchell refer to allegations of abusetaking place on BBC premises.122 Mr Mitchell had seemed interested in‘the approved school angle’.123She was not aware at the time that Mr Jones’s aunt was the Head ofDuncroft, nor that he had been considering the story for some time while
Savile was alive. She said that she would have been ‘quite concerned’
about such a personal involvement or emotional connection.124

Mr Mitchell referred to the tribute programmes and said that Ms Boaden
ought to alert Mr Entwistle to the Newsnight investigation as a ‘kindness to
George to tip him off early because he would have to change the(Christmas) schedule if the investigation went ahead as we thought itwould. And he could start thinking about that earlier rather than later’. Ms
Boaden regarded this as ‘perfectly sensible’.125

71.

At his first interview, Mr Mitchell was vague on what had been discussed inthis meeting,126 but at his second interview, he broadly agreed with Ms
Boaden’s account, save that he thought that informing Mr Entwistle wasnecessary not just as a ‘kindness’, but because this was a ‘managementrole’.127

25 November – the story gets a boost: Surrey police confirm the investigationof Savile
72. On 25 November Mr Williams-Thomas told Mr Jones that Surrey Police had
confirmed to him, off the record, that they had indeed investigated Savile. That
was a big step forward. First, it was confirmation that the police had taken the121

11/02811/022 – 11/023
123
11/024124
11/025125
11/016 – 11/017
126
11/350 – 11/251
127
11/282 – 11/284
122- 63 -

allegations seriously enough to mount an investigation.

Second, it

demonstrated that those residents who said they had been spoken to by thepolice had indeed done so. It reinforced their credibility.
73. Mr Jones immediately passed the news on to Mr Rippon:‘Off the record Surrey Police have now confirmed that they did investigate
Jimmy Savile about sexual abuse of minors and that they interviewed the girls
from Duncroft as part of that inquiry. The Head of the Paedophile unit is now
going to dig out the files and hopefully tell us more on Monday.’128
74. Mr Rippon replied a few minutes later stating simply:‘Excellent. We can then pull together the tx (transmission) plan’.129 Mr Rippon
agreed that it was ‘all systems go’ from 25 November’.130
75. For Mr Jones this was the big breakthrough and the next steps should havefollowed quickly. A transmission date would be fixed, editing booked and ‘it’s areal thing … you are pulling everything together now’.131
76. In Mr Jones’s view, the story stood up at that point and Newsnight had enoughevidence. He said ‘So far as I’m concerned we’re basically over the line now’.132
77. Mr Jones told me that, after 25 November, he was not interested in trying to
track down the police letter.133 However, that remains difficult to accept. The
team continued to pursue the police line and the appearance of a letter
confirming that no action had been taken against Savile because of his age
would undoubtedly have made the story materially stronger. Mr Jones musthave appreciated that.
78. Mr Rippon sought to downplay the enthusiasm evident in his e-mail of 25
November. He said that he responded quickly and on a Friday when he wasout of the office. However, his attempt to downplay his enthusiasm is equallydifficult to accept. The email shows that he was neither unenthusiastic nor
128

12/051
12/052130
11/353131
11/147132
11/157133
11/157 lines 15-19
129- 64 -

hesitant about the story. In his interview, Mr Rippon agreed that thedevelopment on 25 November ‘made it much more likely that the story that hehad outlined to me much earlier was going to come together.’134
79. Mr Jones replied to Mr Rippon informing him that he was hoping to interview a‘second victim’ the next working day and suggested that transmission during
the week of 5 December was still possible.135
27 November: Mr Jones writes the lead-in
80. On 27 November Mr Jones drafted a version of the ‘cue’, the lead-in that would
be read by the presenter just before the filmed story was played out on the
programme. This was:‘When Sir Jimmy Savile died in October, Prince Charles led the tributes to a nationaltreasure. But there was a darker side to the star of Jim’ll Fix it. Newsnight has learnt
that he was investigated by police for sexual assaults on minors but the crownprosecution service decided in 2009? that he was too old and infirm to face trial.
Now some of the girls who say they were assaulted by him in the 1970s when they
were 13, 14 and 15 have talked to Newsnight. They say Savile was an evil man who
should rot in hell and that his charity work gave him cover to get young girls. They
even claim that some of the abuse took place after BBC recordings and involved
other celebrity paedophiles who appeared on Savile’s shows such as Gary Glitter.
Liz Mackean investigates …’136

81. The ‘cue’ is a good summary of how the team saw the potential story. The
abuse allegations are prominent, as is a clear reference to the police
investigation and to the point that ‘Savile was too old and infirm to face trial’.
The allegation of abuse after BBC recordings also features. Shortly afterwards
Ms Livingston suggested that the

final sentence be re-worded so as toemphasise that abuse took place on BBC premises.137
28 November – further steps towards transmission
82.

On 28 November the team took further preparatory steps. Ms MacKean was
engaged in writing a first draft of the script138. The script, in rough form, beganwith a reference to the public tributes and praise for Savile at the time of his

134

11/354
12/053136
12/055137
12/030138
12/057 – 12/061
135- 65 -

death followed by a piece-to-camera (‘PTC’), a short in vision statement settingout ‘another side’ to Savile. There was then to be a short extract from aninterview with Mr Williams-Thomas in which he would apparently refer to the
dropping of the police investigation, before the story developed with parts of theinterview from [R1] and others.
83. Before the Review, Mr Jones played down the aspect of the story relating to the
dropping of the criminal case against Savile, saying that a failure to deliver onthat would not have weakened the story. However, the dropping of the casewas still high up on the team’s ‘wish list.’ It would clearly have beenenthusiastically incorporated if it had materialised.
29 November: Mr Jones works on the script; the ‘Impact team’ mobilises
84. After receiving the draft script from Ms MacKean, Mr Jones worked on it. Early
in Mr Jones’ draft was a quote from an interview with Mr Williams-Thomas(although the interview had not yet been recorded it was clear what line it was
anticipated he was going to take) in which he was expected to say ‘but in 2009
the CPS decided that Savile was too old and infirm to face a trial and dropped
the case – I have to say I don’t think that is acceptable – and why was it all
hushed up?’139 Mr Jones accepted that this story, with the CPS angle
prominent near the start and talking of ‘hushing up’ the abuse, was the story he
was hoping to put out.140
85. The

same

day

Mr

Jones

circulated

the

‘very

rough’

draft

script(ROUGHSAVILE) to Mr Rippon, Ms Gibbons and Roger Law (a BBC lawyer) as
well as Ms MacKean and Ms Livingston.141 The hoped-for quote from Mr
Williams-Thomas was close to the start of the piece. At the end of the script Mr
Jones envisaged a ‘PTC DUNCROFT OR TVC [TELEVISION CENTRE] NOTSURE YET WITH ANY STATEMENT FROM POLICE OR CPS’. Thus the CPS
angle (i.e. the dropping of the criminal investigation), at this stage anyway,
figured strongly at the start and finish of the piece as well as in the cue.

139

12/063
11/158 – 11/159
141
12/062 – 12/068
140- 66 -

86. In evidence, Mr Jones did not accept that there was substantial emphasis on
the police line. He was emphatic: ‘That’s completely untrue’.142 His position
was that the allegations of abuse themselves were clearly the strongest line in
the story and in the script. However, the dropping of the criminal case did playa more significant role in how the team envisaged the story than Mr Jones was
willing to acknowledge.
87. Mr Rippon’s statement indicates that he did not accept that this was sufficiently
complete to properly be called a ‘script’. He told us he was unimpressed withthe work that had been done:‘The first ‘draft script’ of the story was sent to me on 29th November. As well as being
far from a complete document, with interviews we had not done, facts we had notestablished, and things we had not filmed, this script crystallised some key concerns
I had about our investigation’.143

88. On the same day, 29 November, the ‘Impact’ team started gathering
information for the job of preparing versions of the Savile story to run on otherBBC news outlets. Jo Mathys of the Impact team e-mailed Mr Rippon to say
she had spoken to Mr Jones about the story. She was positive about the story
saying: ‘it is safe to assume there will be a huge amount of interest in the story,
I would expect all domestic outlets to want versions’.144
89. Mr Rippon replied ‘I’ll let you know what we can do when we know we have thestory scheduled. I am guessing rolling out [won’t] be too bad as have time andcan control when we do it’.145 There was no suggestion from Mr Rippon that thestory was unlikely to happen although he did not appear to regard the story as‘scheduled’ even though a transmission date of 7 December had apparently
been proposed.146
90. That afternoon Ms Gibbons e-mailed Mr Rippon concerning the Savile story
and asked him ‘are you going to exec this?,’147 meaning was he going to act as
Executive Producer for the Savile film.
142

Ms Gibbons generally had the

11/16010/096 paragraph 13144
12/069145
12/074146
This is referred to in emails by Ms MacKean: 12/056, and Mr Rippon: 12/071
147
12/070143- 67 -

Executive Producer role – in other words the senior editorial figure responsiblefor individual Newsnight films, although Mr Rippon would occasionally take onthat role. Ms Gibbons’s email appears to be little more than an attempt by her
to make absolutely sure that she would not have anything to do with the Savile
story in the final stages running up to transmission. Mr Rippon had been thestory’s Executive Producer since the outset and there was, in fact, no need for
Ms Gibbons to send this email: that she did so reinforced her wish to stay awayfrom the story. I discuss below the implications of the fact that Mr Rippon was
not only carrying out an editorial role in relation to the Newsnight investigation,
but was also its Executive Producer.
29 and 30 November: Mr Rippon’s U-turn
91. The events of 29 and 30 November are a key part of the story.

On 29

November, the following emails were sent:

Mr Rippon emailed Mr Mitchell at 1.19 p.m.; 148



Mr Mitchell emailed Mr Rippon at 1.37 p.m.; 149Mr Rippon emailed Mr Mitchell at 1.50 p.m.; 150



Mr Rippon emailed Mr Mitchell at 7.30pm. 151

92. Mr Rippon’s email to Mr Mitchell of 1.19 p.m. said:‘Steve,We have made progress on the Saville [sic] story and now propose to tx on Weds 7th
December.
We have spoken to 7 victims, 2 on tape, who say he molested and sexually assaulted
them when they were under 14/15 including groping and oral sex. The woman [sic]were all at the Duncroft school for troubled kids.
We have also confirmed that Surrey Police carried out an extensive investigation into
the allegations but in 2009 the CPS decided not to prosecute on the grounds that hewas too old. So whilst the offences were a long time ago in the 70’s, the police
investigation is very recent.
148

12/071
12/072 – 12/073
150
12/072-12/073
151
12/097149- 68 -

The women are credible and have no motive for speaking to us other than they want
the truth to be known. The girls would be rewarded with trips to TVC to watch and bein the audience. We have archive of when they appeared on shows with Gary Glitterand Jonathan King, both convicted paedophiles, sometimes as well.
We also think Sky are chasing the story as well so we do not want to sit on it.
Are you around to talk through in more detail? …’

152

93. Mr Mitchell’s reply at 1.37 p.m. was brief. He was on his way to Belfast, but
could talk later. He asked two questions of his own: ‘… you mentioned [thewoman] who ran this place, found her?

Do any of the victims say they

approached staff?’. 153
94. Mr Rippon replied approximately fifteen minutes later, answering Mr Mitchell’squestions and including in his email several cut and pasted sections from thedraft script. 154 In his email of 7.30 p.m. to Mr Mitchell, Mr Rippon told Mr
Mitchell that he would get a script to Mr Mitchell ‘this time tomorrow’ but said
that he ‘just need[ed] to iron out a few bits with Meirion first. He’s interviewing asecond victim on camera tomorrow’.155

Mr Rippon then provided further

information about ‘others chasing [the story]’.
95. I have the following observations on these emails:


Mr Rippon’s email of 1.19 p.m.156 is very positive about the Savile story.
It is completely at odds with how Mr Rippon described his attitude to us
at this point, as remaining in effect ‘lukewarm’157. In fact, his attitude at
this stage seems to have been positive and enthusiastic.



Mr Rippon describes the Duncroft residents without qualification as‘credible’ and as having no motive for speaking to Newsnight ‘otherthan they want the truth to be known’. He said that ‘we do not want tosit on [the story]’.158 It is clear from this that Mr Rippon was, when he152

12/071
12/072 – 12/073
154
12/072 – 12/073
155
12/097156
12/071
157
11/358158
12/071153- 69 -

sent this email, in a mode that can best be described as ‘full steam
ahead’.


However, there are two mistakes in this email. Mr Rippon says that two
victims have been interviewed on tape – only one had. He also saysthat the team had ‘confirmed that Surrey Police carried out an extensive
investigation into the allegations but in 2009 the CPS decided not toprosecute on the grounds that [Savile] was too old’. At that time, thatfact had not been confirmed and was later confounded. However, I
have no reason to proceed on a basis other than that this is what Mr
Rippon believed to be the case when he sent this email;

Mr Rippon’s position in relation to this email before the Review wasdifficult to understand. Before this email was discussed in his interview,he told me that he had never formed the view that the women inquestion were credible.159 He appeared not to be aware of this email orto remember it. When the email was put to him during his interview, he
attempted to explain it away by suggesting that in this email he wastelling Mr Mitchell ‘this is the strongest iteration of the story that we'vegot. Shall we have a discussion to see… what you think about it?’160 –that is, to prompt an editorial debate with Mr Mitchell.

However, hesaid, his real view was much less positive than was suggested by theemail.161 The Review interviewed Mr Rippon twice and we returned tothis email during our second interview with him. His explanation did notchange – Mr Rippon said he was effectively putting forward thestrengths of the story as Mr Jones saw them, and that he did so as after
he received the draft script he was ‘engaging slightly more fully with thematerial I have and the judgment that I need to make, so I'm kind of
exploring the editorial terrain as much as possible’.162
I found his explanation very difficult to accept: it was completely
inconsistent with the text of the email and, in addition, Mr Mitchell - the159

11/341
11/359161
11/358 – 11/359
162
11/432 – 11/433
160- 70 -

recipient of the email – offered no support for the notion that Mr
Rippon’s comments were to be taken other than at face value.163 He did
not recognise that as a normal tool in editorial discussion and he did notthink that Mr Rippon had followed that practice (at least with him)
before.

Put simply Mr Mitchell - entirely reasonably – took the 29

November email at face value. However, since his interviews with me,
his lawyer has stated in correspondence that his explanation of theemail provided at his interview is only a ‘possible explanation’. His
lawyer also suggested – in my view entirely incorrectly – that what wassaid and what was not said [in Mr Rippon’s email] does not warrant thelevel of hindsight scrutiny to which it has inevitably been subjected
through [my Review] process.


Mr Rippon has indicated through his lawyers that he does not seek toadvance ‘a positive case’ that the explanation he offered in his interview
is correct. Especially in circumstances where neither Mr Rippon nor Mr
Mitchell has any recollection of a conversation between them on 29
November, it is not surprising that I have spent some time puzzling overthe email.



As a result, I conclude that the email is to be given its natural meaning
and that Mr Rippon meant what he said.

The conversation of 29 November 2011
96. Mr Mitchell’s email of 1.37 p.m. said that he could call Mr Rippon later from
Belfast.164 None of the other emails that day or indeed later emails make it
clear whether a telephone conversation did in fact take place. Mr Rippon told
us that he ‘probably did’ talk to Mr Mitchell. 165 Mr Mitchell did not recollect if aconversation had taken place. 166

The inability of both Mr Rippon and Mr

Mitchell to provide any recollection of whether they did or did not speak and, if
so, what was said, was frustrating.
163

11/252 – 11/253
11/072165
11/434166
11/254164- 71 -

97. The question of whether a telephone conversation took place between the two
individuals is important because at 9.37 a.m. on 30 November, Mr Rippon sent
the following email to Mr Jones:‘Having pondered this overnight I think the key is whether we can establish the CPS
did drop the case for the reasons the women say. That makes it a much better story.
Our sources so far are just the women and a second hand briefing. Have we167
exhausted all chances of getting the letter?’.

98.

As an aside, I am aware that criticism has been directed at Mr Rippon for his
use of the phrase ‘just the women’ in this email. Having discussed this email
with Mr Rippon, I am entirely satisfied that, by this, he meant no disrespect. I
am satisfied that he simply meant that there was insufficient corroboration of
the evidence.

99.

Clearly, therefore, Mr Rippon’s attitude to the story changed overnight and hisemail at 9.37 a.m. on 30 November established, for the first time ‘a journalistic
bar’ the story would have to surmount if it was to be broadcast.

Rathersuddenly, establishing that the CPS did not prosecute Savile because he wasold and infirm had become ‘the key’. Mr Rippon told us that while this element
was not necessarily a ‘deal breaker’ as other things may have occurred, thatis clearly how it came to be seen by the Newsnight team and how, in practice,
it worked out.168
100. Mr Rippon’s statement to the Review sets out his thinking at this stage in thefollowing terms:‘The extent to which we had to rely on the testimony from [[R1]] was stark. She was
the only victim in vision we had and would be the face of our allegations and I
remained concerned about how well her testimony would stand up to the scrutiny it
would get.
I was also concerned with the way we had collected the additional evidence fromother victims and witnesses, The women were to remain anonymous. The interviews
had all been done on the telephone. Some of them were done by a junior researcher
who was with us on work experience who I had never worked with. I was also
concerned that the evidence could potentially be undermined because some of thewomen had already discussed the claims amongst themselves via a social
networking site. In my personal experience, the strongest testimony from victims ofalleged child sexual abuse has to be collected individually, face to face, on neutral
167
168

12/077
11/363- 72 -

territory, with trained interviewers used to not asking leading questions. This was along way from what we had done.
For these reasons I emailed Meirion on 30th November saying I wanted to pursue the
CPS angle on the story to its end before finally deciding on publishing…’.169

101. The text of Mr Rippon’s email to Mr Jones on 30 November170 is consistent with
Mr Rippon having previously expressed reservations about the credibility ofsome of the women and about the non-appearance of the CPS letter.
However, it was not consistent with his email the previous day to Mr Mitchell171
which spoke in such positive terms about the story.
102. It is very difficult to draw clear conclusions on what happened. It seems to me,
however, that there are three broad possibilities:


Mr Rippon was in fact very keen on the story but something happened
to change his mind overnight and that this was influenced by aconversation he had with Mr Mitchell.



Mr Rippon was very keen on the story but something happened tochange his mind overnight, but that was not influenced by aconversation with Mr Mitchell but was as a result of his simply ‘having
pondered overnight…’ as his email on 30 November suggests. 172

Although this is considerably less likely, Mr Rippon had, as he claimed,
deliberately over stated the story in his email of 29 November173 despite
actually harbouring doubts as to whether it would stand up, and hisemail of 30 November to Mr Jones reflects the position that he had
consistently held.

103.

The best evidence I have is Mr Rippon’s statement that a conversation‘probably did’ take place.174

Although the evidence on this issue isunsatisfactory, relying upon what Mr Rippon says, I have reached theconclusion that a conversation in all likelihood did take place and that this169

10/096 – 10/097, paragraphs 14 - 16
12/077171
12/071172
412/077173
12/071174
11/434, line 18
170- 73 -

conversation had an important influence on the view of the strength of theNewsnight investigation which Mr Rippon expressed the following day.
This view reflected a dramatic shift in the position he had expressed on 29
November. However, I have no reason to believe that what Mr Mitchellsaid was inappropriate or that it was influenced by any wish on Mr
Mitchell’s part to protect the Savile tribute programmes. I deal with the
MRPL above, but whatever the mistake of Mr Mitchell in that regard, he didtake a step to cause Mr Entwistle, as Director of Vision, to be warned
about the risk to the tribute programmes. Therefore, I conclude that it isvery likely that what Mr Mitchell said influenced Mr Rippon but that thiswas motivated by Mr Mitchell’s caution about the Savile story and his
insistence on a proper and rigorous editorial process.
30 November: the team reacts to Mr Rippon’s e-mail104.

Mr Jones told us he was ‘shaken’ by Mr Rippon’s e-mail which came out of
the blue.175 He regarded it as ‘bringing in a bar that hadn’t been there before’.
His view was that there had been ‘no real problems’ on the previous
afternoon176 and he ‘found it bizarre that (Mr Rippon) should be trying to shift
the editorial focus of the film in this way and at this late stage of development
in circumstances where he had not even reviewed the material we had put
together’.177 For Mr Jones this was ‘unprecedented’.178

105.

Ms MacKean’s evidence was similar.

She told us that she had had noindication before 30 November that the story was in danger of not goingahead.

For her part she considered that the ‘old and infirm’ angle was‘important, but not... the thing that would stop the story going ahead.
Particularly given the fact that… we had more evidence than the CPS had toconsider’.179 But for Ms MacKean this was the first time it had been set down

175

11/164
11/164177
10/044, paragraph 9.3
17810/044, paragraph 9.3
179
11/222176- 74 -

in black and white that the CPS line was the ultimate test for the story goingahead.180
106.

The 30 November e-mail prompted discussions and indeed arguments
between Mr Rippon on one hand and Mr Jones and Ms MacKean on theother. Mr Jones was keen to point out that the arguments were civil – they
were not violent rows and there was no ‘shouting and screaming’ on eitherside.181 It seems clear to me, though, that by this stage relationships between
Mr Rippon and his investigative team began to break down and that, as thedebate continued in the following days, some personal animosity crept in.
This, in my view, was extremely unfortunate and contributed to the difficulties
experienced by the BBC over the following months.

107.

None of the participants made any contemporaneous note of those
discussions. The only contemporaneous evidence is a series of personal emails sent that day and later to friends by Ms MacKean, the first one on themorning of 30 November. She wrote to a friend at ITN:
‘must tell you [the] story when we next speak: PR in an absolute spin… he’s alreadydone the surrender gesture and told me and Mei: if the bosses aren’t happy (theywon’t be) I can’t go to the wall on this one..’182

108.

Mr Jones told me:That he remembered Mr Rippon using ‘the surrender gesture’.

He

could not be certain that Mr Rippon had used the words ‘if the bosses
aren’t happy..’ but he recalled him saying ‘I can’t go to the wall on thisone’ which he took to mean that Mr Rippon was under pressure fromhis superiors. Mr Jones ‘assumed at the time’ that this was a reference
to Mr Mitchell and Ms Boaden.183


Mr Jones said both in his statement to us and in his interview that hetold his editor that if the story was pulled the BBC would be accused of180

11/221A – 11/221B
11/165182
12/078183
11/165 – 11/166
181- 75 -

a cover up to save the Christmas specials and protect the BBC’s
reputation.184


According to Mr Jones, Mr Rippon did not say that his bosses had put
any pressure on him to drop the story, although Mr Jones believed thatwas the clear implication.185



Mr Jones did not ask whether Mr Rippon had spoken to anyone moresenior about the story and Mr Rippon did not volunteer any information
about that.186

109.

Ms MacKean told me:She and Mr Jones had consistently told Mr Rippon that Newsnight had
more evidence than the CPS could have been aware of and because ofthat it was wrong to regard the CPS line as ‘the key’. She said she was‘astonished’ that Mr Rippon did not seem to absorb this important
point.187



Referring to her private e-mail of 30 November she said she clearlyrecalled Mr Rippon’s ‘surrender gesture’ as well as the words ‘if thebosses aren’t happy I can’t go to the wall on this one’ – by ‘bosses’ she
too assumed he meant Mr Mitchell and Ms Boaden. She agreed thatthe words in her e-mail ‘they won’t be’ (i.e. ‘happy’) were hers rather
than Mr Rippon’s.188

She told us her interpretation had not been that the bosses ‘were
breathing down his neck... just that he wasn’t going to be challenging
them if they had concerns’. And that ‘he wasn’t willing to really push it.
That he didn’t want to cross them full stop’.189

184

11/167; 10/044 – 10/045 paragraph 9.4
11/167 – 11/168
186
11/167 – 11/168
187
11/222 – 11/223
188
11/223 – 11/224
189
11/224 – 11/225
185- 76 -

110.

It would appear that these conversations were followed by a further
conversation between Mr Rippon and Ms MacKean, which prompted a further
email from Ms MacKean to the same friend at ITN, in which she said:‘PR’s latest panic attack: “Liz, internally, this is a very long political chain”’.190

111.

Mr Rippon could not recall the conversation and, in particular, could not recall
using the term ‘long political chain’.191 Ms MacKean was sure that Mr Rippon
had used the word ‘political’ and she took that to mean something more than a‘BBC’ or ‘managerial’ chain.192 Her assumption at the time was that it was anindication that someone beyond the news division had been involved in thedecision. Mr Rippon thought that, insofar as he used the word ‘chain’, hewould have been much more likely to have referred to a ‘editorial chain’ andnot a political one and any chain would have been no longer in the case ofSavile than any other story.193

112.

Only the three people involved in those discussions can know precisely what
was said. Clearly, the relationship between Mr Jones and Ms MacKean on
the one hand and Mr Rippon on the other was strained. It is difficult, however,to conclude that at least some of the statements recorded in the emails were
not made by Mr Rippon: it would be illogical to suggest to the contrary. So, I
think it must be likely that Mr Rippon did say that ‘the bosses’ might not be
happy and he did say words to the effect that he could not ‘go to the wall on
this one’ and he may well have made a reference to a ‘chain’. However, I
have not concluded that any inappropriate managerial pressure influenced Mr
Rippon’s decision making process. Ms Boaden commented, in her interview,on these emails. She said: ‘Well it has been known for editors to use bosses
or editorial policy as arse-covering reasons when they actually want to maketheir own decision… that’s how it reads to me’. 194

113.

I clearly cannot be certain on this, but I do think that this is a likely explanation
for whatever comments of this nature were made by Mr Rippon. On balance,

190

12/07911/360; 11/361 – 11/362
192
11/226 – 11/228
193
11/360; 11/361 – 11/362
194
11/029191- 77 -

I think that these comments were most probably made as a means ofdeflecting criticism from himself and making his conversations with anincreasingly rebellious team more straightforward. While one can see whysuch an approach might be adopted, I do consider that it was inadvisable andthat Mr Rippon, as an editor of a programme, should have been more
prepared openly to defend the decision he had taken.
114.

Two other relevant e-mails were sent that day. Mr Jones emailed himself atwork a summary of the Savile story, which ran through the evidence trail. This
included the following:‘25 Nov
Ex head of Surrey Police Paedophile unit confirms off record that police didinvestigate Savile and interviewed Duncroft girls but has subsequently moved
to Northern Ireland HMIC so needs to check details. Still waiting for that.’195
Mr Jones’s email to himself is indicative of the fact that arguments between Mr
Rippon and the investigative team were starting and the fact that it had
become much less likely that the story would run. Mr Jones plainly felt thatthe tide was turning against a story to which he was closely attached and he
was immediately preparing to marshal his arguments.

115.

Second, that afternoon Mr Jones e-mailed Ms MacKean with the latest (andas it turned out final) version of the script: ROUGHSAVILE5.doc. It followed
the same structure as previous versions including a prominent mention of the
CPS deciding that Savile was ‘too old and infirm to face a trial’.196

1 December: the ‘Red Flag’ email: Mr Rippon halts work on other elements ofthe story
116.

Early on 1 December Mr Jones wrote what he referred to as his ‘red flag email’. However, he sent it only to himself (to his work and personal e-mailaddresses) but to no-one else. It consisted of a detailed note setting out his

195
196

12/080 – 12/081
12/082 – 12/089- 78 -

thoughts on (i) why the story should run and (ii) the serious consequences for
the BBC of not doing so.197
117.

It is clear from the ‘red flag e-mail’ and from what Mr Jones’ told the Review
that he was (and remains) convinced that the evidence gathered by him andhis fellow Newsnight investigators was more than strong enough to justify
running the story. While I do consider that Mr Jones has played down theimportance he gave to the ‘old and infirm’ letter, I accept – as the ‘red flag email’ confirms – that Mr Jones felt the story (to which he was clearly closely
attached) was strong enough to run and felt that the ‘bar’ put in place by Mr
Rippon was illogical and unnecessary. Mr Jones offered a further thought insupport of this view: The ITV ‘Exposure’ documentary about Savile in October
2012 relied on largely similar evidence to that gathered by Newsnight inNovember and December 2011 and not on the supposed ‘old and infirm’letter.198

It was, of course, a powerful programme that was regarded ashaving put forward convincing evidence of sexual abuse by Savile.
118.

On the afternoon of 1 December, Mr Rippon e-mailed Mr Jones with thesubject line ‘Cops’. The message said ‘assume still no word?’ and added‘I think we should stop working on other elements until we know for sure what we arelikely to get from them because we don’t really have a strong enough story without it.
199
I’ll pull editing etc for now’.

119.

After a brief reply from Mr Jones saying ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea let’schat,’200 Mr Jones and Mr Rippon did have a discussion, as follows:

Mr Jones told us that he argued that the story was already ‘incrediblystrong’201 and that Mr Rippon was putting up an ‘artificial bar to prevent
it getting on air’202. Mr Jones’s view was that, even if the CPS had
dropped the case, as the women believed, because Savile was old andfrail, the CPS would be unlikely to say so now and expose themselves

197
198
199
200
201
202

12/090 – 12/093
11/158 – 11/159
12/094
12/095
11/16910/046 paragraph 11.4

- 79 -

to unnecessary criticism. In any case, he said, Newsnight already had
a story which would make the front page of any British newspaper.203


Mr Jones told us that he argued that Newsnight’s evidence was now
stronger than at the start of the investigation because they had informal
confirmation that the police had taken the women’s allegations seriously
enough to pass a file to the CPS.204

He also told us that he told Mr Rippon that the Newsnight team had
more evidence than the police had, because [R1] (who had given anon the record interview) had never spoken to the police. Newsnight
also had allegations of Gary Glitter’s sexual abuse on BBC premises 205

120.

Mr Jones told us that he warned Mr Rippon that there would be allegations ofa cover up in any event when the victims went to the press as Mr Jones
thought was likely.206

121.

Mr Jones told us that Mr Rippon said that Mr Jones should not haveinterviewed [R1] at such an early stage in the investigation: that may well have
put her through a difficult experience unnecessarily if the story was dropped.
He apparently suggested that such interviews should not be done until a firm
decision had been made to broadcast. Mr Jones told us that he found this
proposition absurd.207

122.

Mr Jones said there were several conversations like this over the next few
days, sometimes with Ms MacKean present.

Mr Jones told us that heemphasised to Mr Rippon several of the dangers that he had set out in his
private ‘red flag e-mail’.

Ms MacKean described similar conversations

between her, Mr Jones and Mr Rippon.208 She told us that she thought Mr
Rippon was ‘unresponsive’ to the arguments they were making.209

203
204
205
206
207
208
209

10/046 paragraph 11.4
10/046 paragraph 11.5
10/046 paragraph 11.4
10/046 paragraph 11.7
10/046 paragraph 11.8
10/076 paragraphs 26 - 27
10/076 paragraph 28- 80 -

123.

Mr Rippon could not recall having any detailed conversation about the ‘red
flag’ issues (he had, of course, not been sent the e-mail).210 He felt that Mr
Jones was pushing the story hard, like ‘a salesman,’211 which had the effect ofmaking Mr Rippon less rather than more inclined to run it.

124.

It appears that Mr Rippon did cancel the editing that had been allocated to theSavile story. Later on 1 December Ms Gibbons e-mailed one of hercolleagues about another Newsnight report, saying ‘We have spare editing
now because of Jimmy.’212

2 December – the Women in Film and Television Awards lunch
125.

On Friday 2 December, Mr Rippon, Mr Mitchell, Ms Boaden, Mr Entwistle andothers attended an awards lunch organised by Women in Film and Television.
Mr Entwistle, of course, was at that time the BBC’s Director of Vision. It will
be recalled that Mr Mitchell had, on 23 November , suggested to Ms Boadenthat it would be ‘a kindness to George’ to let him know the basic details of theNewsnight Savile investigation.213

126.

Her evidence to us was as follows:‘The first time I saw GE (after my holiday) was at the Sky Women in TV and Film
Awards on December 2nd 2011. After the lunch when most people had left the table I
got him to one side when no one else was around and told him Newsnight were
doing an investigation into JS and if it went ahead as planned, ‘you will definitely
need to change the Christmas schedule’. To the best of my recollection he said
something like “Thanks – keep me posted”. I cannot remember if I gave him any
explicit detail about the subject of the investigation though it is probable I did mention
214
it was about sex abuse’.

127.

Mr Entwistle’s evidence to us (some of which was provided by his lawyers in
the third person) was as follows:‘[Mr Entwistle] recalls that the conversation took place at the beginning [of the lunch]
before they sat down for lunch. [Mr Entwistle] does not believe [Ms Boaden’s]

210
211
212
213
214

11/367
11/365; 11/368
12/096
11/01610/006 paragraph 32- 81 -

recollection is correct [i.e. as to the stage of the lunch at which they spoke] but hedistinctly remembers that he left the lunch early as he felt unwell.215
Helen came up to me and… mentioned the Savile investigation … my recollection isthat she was open-ended about whether or not anything would come of it. That was
my recollection of that exchange’.216‘So she didn’t say ‘We’re days away’ or ‘This is imminent and it is stood up and you
need to know because we’re about to press the go button on it’. It felt much more
like ‘Newsnight are looking at Savile and if anything comes of it … if it stands up … if
it pans out … then there may be implications for your Christmas Schedule’.217‘The key message that [Mr Entwistle] took from the conversation was its
conditionality; as far as he can recall [Ms Boaden] made it clear that theSavile investigation had not yet been stood up … What [Mr Entwistle] took
away from the conversation was that if something were to come of theinvestigation, [Ms Boaden] would come back to him’.218
128.

One initially puzzling aspect of this is why it took so long for Ms Boaden toraise this issue with Mr Entwistle, particularly as the purpose had been so that
‘George… could start thinking about that earlier rather than later’.219

Thesuggestion that this should be done had come from Mr Mitchell when he andMs Boaden talked on 23 November and more than a week had passed before
she actually spoke to Mr Entwistle about the issue. Ms Boaden’s explanation
for this is that it was the first opportunity she had had to speak to him, having
been away on holiday for a few days and then missed him at least twice when
she called by his office220.
129.

In her interview with us Ms Boaden said she genuinely could not remember
how much detail she had given Mr Entwistle. ‘Common sense suggests that I
said it was about underage sex or something similar. But because I can’t
remember I think it is unfair to say that I can’.221 The purpose of her briefing
was ‘to give him a heads up that this was coming, because at that point weabsolutely thought it was and that he needed to think about… he’d got some

215
216
217
218
219
220
221

10/030 paragraph 2.6
11/073 – 11/074
11/074
10/029 – 10/030 paragraphs 2.1-2.2
11/01610/006 paragraph 31
11/019- 82 -

chunks of the Christmas schedule he needed to think of alternative
programming.’222
130.

Ms Boaden was clear when she spoke to us that, at the time of herconversation with Mr Entwistle, she fully expected the Newsnight report to go
ahead. Indeed, she had no reason to think otherwise as she had not been aparty to Mr Rippon’s sudden coolness towards the story in the previous coupleof days.

131.

It is rather strange, then, that on the following day, 3 December, Mr Mitchell emailed Mr Rippon about the Savile story saying: ‘Not sure where you are with
this? Helen told George E about it yesterday but said she didn’t think anything
would come of it?’.223 This last point is, of course, entirely inconsistent withwhat Ms Boaden told us – namely that she had given Mr Entwistle the clear
impression that the story was likely to be broadcast.

132.

Unfortunately, Mr Mitchell, once again, was unable to provide any explanation
for his email, although the lawyers advising Mr Entwistle were quick to rely
upon this email to Mr Entwistle’s advantage,224 even though it did not exactly
accord with what Mr Entwistle actually remembered about the conversation.225

133.

Mr Entwistle told us that he did not take any action in response to Ms
Boaden’s warning.226 If the purpose had been to give him an opportunity to
put some plans in train for possible changes to the Christmas schedule, hedidn’t do so. Mr Entwistle said he did not even recall asking Ms Boaden what
the Newsnight investigation was about.227

134.

Mr Entwistle’s evidence to us was similar to that which he gave to the Houseof Commons Media Select Committee.

222
223
224
225
226
227

11/020 – 11/021
12/097
10/030 paragraph 2.3
11/073 – 11/074; 11/079 – 11/080
11/076
11/075 – 11/076- 83 -He repeated that he was aware,particularly as an ex News man, of the need not to be seen to be interfering ina News project.228 Referring to Ms Boaden he said:‘I think I would have wanted to show to Helen, as a peer, that I was very much
alive to the notion of not sticking my nose into her business …I would want toshow to her that I was alive to the dangers and she could fairly expect me tobe alive to the dangers given my background’.229
135.

He said his assumption was that if anything had come of the Newsnight story,
Ms Boaden would have let him know so that the problem could be addressed
between them, or would have let the Director General know so they could
have discussed it with him. ‘I think I was in a place which was “If Newsnight
stand up their story then there is a corporate issue and if they do not stand up
their story then there isn’t a corporate issue”’.230

136.

My view is that Ms Boaden probably did give Mr Entwistle the general gist of
the Newsnight investigation, i.e. that it involved allegations that Savile had
been involved in sex abuse.

137.

I have the following comments on this conversation:

Ms Boaden had been asked by Mr Mitchell to bring the Newsnight
Savile investigation to the attention of Mr Entwistle.231 She clearly tried
to do this before the lunch on 2 December 2011, but it transpired thatthe lunch was the first opportunity for them to speak.

She was,however, delivering an important message and, in my view, this was an
inappropriate way to do so. It was too casual, too fleeting and left much
uncertainty about the outcome.


Mr Entwistle was merely a recipient of information in this conversation.
In my view, he was unnecessarily cautious and this meant that an
opportunity was lost. It is surprising that, while presumably waiting to

228
229
230
231

11/077 – 11/078
11/07811/081
11/041- 84 -

hear more from Ms Boaden, Mr Entwistle took no steps to review his
Christmas Schedule.
5 December: confirmation from Surrey Police; conversation between Mr
Rippon and Ms MacKean
138.

Although the Newsnight Savile story was not formally and finally dropped until
9 December, its chances of making it to air had been fading since Mr Rippon’se-mail to his team on the morning of 30 November.232

139.

If that had not been the case then a development on 5 December would haveprovided a welcome boost. Surrey Police issued a formal statement
confirming that they had investigated ‘a historic allegation of indecent
assault… alleged to have occurred at a children’s home in Staines in the
1970s’.233 In response to a further question from Mr Jones they confirmed‘the case had been referred to the CPS and it was the CPS who decided not
to take it any further.’234

140.

Conversations continued between the three main participants, Mr Rippon on
one side and Mr Jones and Ms MacKean on the other.

One specificconversation on 5 December should be noted.
141.

Ms MacKean describes the conversation in her written account:‘In the morning, Peter and I spoke in the production office. He told me he wished
he’d never let Meirion talk him into running the story. I rehearsed the arguments,
stressing that we had more than the police had. It made no difference and there
seemed to be a gulf between us in the way we saw the story. Peter told me that thethings had happened 40 years ago, adding that ’they weren’t the youngest victims’and ‘it wasn’t the worst kind of abuse’. I was shocked to hear this, particularly giventhat I had spoken to the women and they had trusted me to tell their stories. I felt that
I owed them and they deserved to be heard. I told Peter his attitude explained why
abuse victims are so reluctant to come forward. I also reminded him the girls had
been in care. I hoped this would register because he had been a big supporter of aseries I’d done involving teenagers leaving the care system. At some point during
the day I asked Peter if he had contacted the controller of BBC 1 (about the possible
conflict between our programme and the Savile tributes) and he said he hadn’t.’235

232
233
234
235

12/077
12/098
12/09810/077 paragraph 31- 85 -

142.

The following day Ms MacKean sent an e-mail to a friend (and former
colleague):‘My story with Meirion is terrifying the bosses. Basically, BBC1 is preparing a Jim’ll
Fix It special for Xmas. ... Having commissioned the story, Peter Rippon keeps
saying he’s lukewarm about it and is trying to kill it by making impossible editorial
demands. When we rebut his points, he resorts to saying: well, it was forty years
ago… the girls were teenagers, not too young… they weren’t the worst kind of sexual
offences etc. …
Peter doesn’t like to openly pull the story he commissioned, so he’s hovering aroundlooking tense’.236

143.

On 7 December Ms MacKean sent a similar e-mail to a colleague:…the JS story is a gathering storm….PR trying everything to kill it: ‘I no longer thinkit’s a newsnight story….the girls were fourteen and fifteen – it’s not the worst kind of237
abuse’ etc etc’ .

144.

Mr Rippon did not accept what Ms MacKean said in her emails when it was
put to him during his interview. He said:‘It’s offensive and absurd. I was trying to do the story. So if I felt that why would I be
trying to get the story on air?... it doesn’t make sense. It is illogical that that would
have been my view if I was trying to get the story on air.’‘I think it [the account in the e-mail] is outrageous. I can’t recall this conversation andI’m trying to put the story on air. I think what Liz may misunderstand is that...in thesame way that I write an e-mail to Stephen Mitchell presenting the strength of thestory in order to provoke a conversation with him, with them I challenged the story, inorder to provoke a conversation with them. You know, ultimately I absorb both views
and then I make a judgment…that particular allegation about ‘teenagers, not too
young’… I was pursuing the story. So it is illogical that I would have...said that…. as I
say, I can’t recall that conversation, so it is quite difficult for me to...rebut it if I can’t
recall the detail of it’.238

145.

And later:‘I wasn’t trying to kill it…had the CPS confirmed the element of the story that Meirion
said stood up within the early stages of us investigating it, or had the letter that the
women had been promising…arrived, I would have been satisfied … about doing thestory.’239

146.

There is clearly a conflict between these two accounts which is difficult toresolve. In my view, this comes down to two points. First, was Mr Rippon

236
237
238
239

12/099 – 12/100
12/101
11/369 – 11/370
11/372- 86 -

genuinely trying to get the story on air at this stage or had he effectively
already set his mind against it?

Second, was he playing down theseriousness of Savile’s alleged actions to diminish the value of the story?
147.

I think it is clear that, at this stage, Mr Rippon would have broadcast the story
if there was clear confirmation that the CPS had dropped the case against
Savile because of his age.

That could either have come through theappearance of the ‘old and infirm’ letter or by the CPS confirming that fact
themselves. If that had happened I do not think Mr Rippon would have beenable to resist the pressure to broadcast. Indeed, the story would have passed
the threshold that he himself had set so he would have had no reason to
oppose it, although he clearly had considerable other doubts too.
148.

However, I also consider that Mr Rippon did make at least some of thecomments (or, at least, comments similar to them) that Ms MacKean reports
in her e-mails to friends. He might possibly have been debating the merits ofthe story to some extent but I think he was also in the process of producing
his own justifications for the moment when – as seemed increasingly likely –the story was formally dropped.

149.

In one of her e-mails, mentioned above, Ms MacKean also said:‘He [Mr Rippon] hasn’t warned BBC1 about the story, so they’re beavering away on
the special oblivious. Liz G [Gibbons] has said to Meirion: ‘I’m having nothing to dowith this, I don’t want to piss off Danny Cohen [Controller of BBC1]), it’s down toPeter.’240

150.

There is a potentially serious implication of this latter comment. It suggeststhat a desire not to upset the Controller of BBC1 (a figure associated withentertainment TV output rather than News) was a possible factor inconsidering the Savile story.

In her evidence to us, Ms Gibbons very

categorically denied having used the phrase about not wanting ‘to piss off
Danny Cohen’241 although the phrase ‘I’m having nothing to do with this...’would seem to accord with her own view of her attitude to the Savile story. As
I explain, I do not conclude that the decision to pull the Newsnight Savile story

240
241

12/10011/127 – 11/128- 87 -

was influenced by the fact that Savile tribute programmes were planned on
the BBC.
7 December: e-mail from Helen Deller to Mr Rippon
151.

On 7 December, Helen Deller from the BBC Press Office e-mailed Mr Rippon
and members of the investigations team about the Savile story.242 She had
been reminded by a conversation with Ms MacKean that the story was in thepipeline and set out her thoughts on how to manage press interest and ensurethat the story got proper coverage.

152.

Mr Rippon replied ‘We are putting the cart way before the horse here. We
have been looking into the story but it is far from clear it will ever be strong
enough for us even to run it. At the moment I am not satisfied that it is’.243 This
reply was consistent with the editorial ‘bar’ that Mr Rippon had set but in myview the tone of the email gave a clear impression that the story was
extremely unlikely to run.

153.

Seeing this e-mail, Mr Jones expressed his frustration in an e-mail to a friend
the same day:
‘Meanwhile I’m dealing with a BBC which doesn’t want to put out a piece about
Jimmy Savile being investigated by police about sexual offences against 13, 14 [and]15 year olds including interviews with victims because it might damage the audience
for the Jim’ll Fix It Christmas Special. At the moment my opinion of BBC
management is… well not quite as high as it usually is shall we say.’244

154.

A second e-mail from Mr Jones to another friend offered similar sentiments:‘..for some reason BBC bosses think it [the Newsnight investigation] might
wreck their Jim’ll Fix It Christmas Special so they’re trying to block it without
sending an e-mail saying ‘cover it up’’.245

155.

Despite the strength of the allegation in Mr Jones’s emails, he accepted in his
testimony to us that he had no evidence to support his view that the Savile
investigation had been dropped to protect the Savile Christmas tribute

242
243
244
245

12/105 – 12/106
12/105
12/108
12/109 – 12/110- 88 -

programmes246. His view was that the decision was so illogical there could be
no other explanation. I do not agree with that view.
156.

At 5:26pm on 7 December, Mr Rippon sent Mr Jones an e-mail asking‘What is the latest….did the CPS get back?...There is a limit to how much time it is247
sensible to continue chasing this.’

157.

Mr Jones replied:… still waiting for CPS…As you know I already think story is strong enough – anddanger of not running it is substantial damage to BBC reputation – but no point
having that discussion until I have final word from CPS’248

158.

This exchange provides a snapshot of the state of mind of both Mr Rippon
and Mr Jones at this stage. Mr Rippon does not sound like a man who iswaiting (and hoping) for the last piece of the jigsaw to fall into place so hecould run the story. On the contrary, he seemed to be keen to see the back of
the story.

Mr Jones’ e-mail makes it clear he was aware of his editor’sresistance to the story in the face of his own strong support for it. His ‘as you
know’ suggests that he had already warned Mr Rippon of the potential for‘substantial damage to BBC reputation’ if the story was dropped. The twomen seem to have been very far apart in their views.
8 December: ‘Savile-gate’; further meeting involving Mr Mitchell
159.

The following day, Ms Gibbons e-mailed Ms Beck in Mr Mitchell’s office about
the MRPL.

The Savile story remained off the MRPL and Ms Gibbons,referring tongue-in-cheek to ‘Savile-gate’, probably in view of the fact that theargument amongst the Newsnight team about the story was now widely
known, told Ms Beck ‘will keep Saville [sic] off [the MRPL] until we know for
sure’249.
160.

Mr Rippon recalls around this time, possibly on 8 December, having a further
meeting with Mr Mitchell. Mr Rippon says he told him that they were still

246
247
248
249

11/170, line 23 – 11/171, line 5
12/103 – 12/104
12/107
12/111-112- 89 -

pursuing the Savile story and the ‘old and infirm’ letter. He says Mr Mitchell’s
attitude was ‘neutral’.250 It does not appear that this meeting was significant.
161.

There was also a further meeting between Mr Mitchell and Mr Boaden,
perhaps also on 8 December. Ms Boaden’s evidence was that Mr Mitchell
had told her that the Savile story had been ‘re-nosed’, in other words that themain emphasis of it had been changed to focus on a different angle: the
CPS/police investigation.251 Ms Boaden did not get the impression from thismeeting that the story was not going ahead.252

9 December: the CPS says it did not prosecute due to lack of evidence
162.

The story suffered its final and fatal blow on 9 December. The CPS provided
Mr Jones with a statement:‘Following an investigation by [Surrey] Police, the CPS reviewing lawyer
advised the police that no further action should be taken due to lack ofevidence’.

163.

The statement added:‘As this is the case, it would not be correct to say that his age and frailty was
the reason for no further action being taken.253’

164.

This was obviously highly significant. In Mr Rippon’s eyes, of course, it meant
the story fell below the bar he had set. It was clear he would not agree to run
it.

For the Newsnight investigators, although they still believed the story

should be broadcast, there cannot have been any doubt that the CPS
statement was a disappointment and a setback to the story.
165.

Mr Jones immediately forwarded the CPS statement to Mr Rippon with theheading:‘CPS SAY NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE’.254

250
251
252
253
254

10/097 paragraph 20
10/006 paragraph 33; 11/026; 11/033 – 11/034
11/034
12/115
12/113- 90 -

166.

Mr Rippon and Mr Jones then spoke. It is clear that both men knew the story
was not going to run. It would appear there was not much further debate,although Mr Jones told us: ‘I said I still didn’t understand how the BBC could
show tributes to a man who they now knew had been investigated by thepolice as a paedophile and when we were in possession of an on-camera
interview with one of his victims alleging a statutory rape on BBC premises by
Gary Glitter as Savile watched.’255

167.

Mr Jones told us that his acceptance of the decision to drop the story wasvery reluctant. It was either that, he said, or ‘leave the BBC’.256 A few minutes
later Mr Rippon e-mailed Mr Mitchell to tell him the news and added ‘As aresult Meirion has accepted my view and agreed not to pursue anymore’257.
Mr Mitchell replied ‘Fair enough’.258

168.

In his interviews with me, Mr Jones drew a significant distinction between thestory being dropped for ‘editorial reasons’ and ‘journalistic reasons’.259 The
former simply meant that a decision had been taken by the editor. The lattersuggested that there was some journalistic logic to the decision. He made it
clear that he believed that there was so little journalistic logic behind Mr
Rippon’s decision to drop the Savile story, that it could only have been
motivated by pressure caused by the Christmas tribute programmes.260 Mr
Jones accepted that he had no evidence of that261 but he was very clear thatthat was what he thought. I have no doubt that Mr Jones thought this, but, asI have already said, I do not agree with him.

12 December: final discussions; Ms MacKean tries again to find the police
letter169.

Around 12 December, Mr Mitchell told Ms Boaden that the story was not going
to run because Mr Rippon could not substantiate it. Ms Boaden told us she

255
256
257
258
259
260
261

10/051 paragraph 18.12
10/051 paragraph 18.14
12/114
12/114
11/194A, lines 1-8
11/195 – 11/196
11/195 line 3- 91 -

did not ask why and that she would not have pushed for further details as she
was working with an experienced editor whose judgement she trusted.262
170.

On 12 December, Ms MacKean made one last effort to see if she could comeup with the CPS letter. She e-mailed [R2] saying ‘We’ve come up against abrick wall in our story’.263 She noted that the CPS statement contradicted what
[R2] and others had told the investigative team and asked again for the letter
which she described as the ‘only [way to] get round this’.264

262
263
264

11/034
12/116
12/116- 92 -

PART THREE: CHAPTER TWO: ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE
INVESTIGATION AND THE DECISION NOT TO PURSUE IT
THE DECISION TO DISCONTINUE THE INVESTIGATION
1.

In Chapter two of Part three, I deal with specific questions not addressed in
Chapter one. I consider:
1)

What was the story?

2)

Did any inappropriate managerial pressure or consideration influence
the decision of Mr Rippon not to run the Savile story?

3)

Why was the story not pursued after December 2011?

Was MrRippon’s decision to drop the story reasonable?
4)

Should material derived from the Savile investigation have been
provided to the police/relevant authorities?

What was the story?
2.

At the very start, the investigation was solely into abuse by Savile. That isclear beyond doubt: the Newsnight team did not know (or have any reason toknow) at the time the investigation began – i.e. on 31 October 2011 - that thepolice had ever investigated Savile. So when Mr Jones pitched the story to
his editor Mr Rippon that morning,265he was proposing an investigation into
sexual abuse by Savile, not into any actions – or lack of them – by the policeor the CPS.

3.

However, by 3 November, in one of Ms Livingston’s first contacts with an exDuncroft resident, she was told that the police had investigated Savile a few
years earlier but that charges had not been pressed because of his age.266

4.

There are four factors that persuade me that the Newsnight investigating team– Mr Jones, Ms MacKean and Ms Livingston – did consider the police letter
important.

265
266

10/035 paragraph 5.4; 12/011
12/017- 93 -



There is considerable evidence of the team’s repeated efforts to confirm
the police angle, in particular, the ‘old and infirm’ strand, by attempting to
track down the police letter.



As discussed in more detail below, the ‘old and infirm’ strand of the police
angle – the claim that the case had been dropped because of Savile’s age– featured prominently in the draft lead-in for the story267 and in the outline
script itself.268



If the police letter existed in the form that had been suggested it would
have strongly corroborated the women’s evidence and might have raised
the possibility of a police cover-up.



There was obviously a danger that the absence of any such letter could
weaken the credibility that could be given to some of the women’s
accounts, bearing in mind that several of them said they had received
such a letter.

5.

From 3 November onwards, questions surrounding action (or inaction) by thepolice and CPS figured prominently in the investigation. A particular focus of
the investigation was consistent efforts to track down the ‘old and infirm’
police/CPS letter that several of the women reported having received. The
letter and the police/CPS angle were mentioned frequently in e-mails (and, it
is fair to assume, figured frequently in discussions) within the investigationteam and between them and Mr Rippon. That element of the story was notpresent at the very start of the investigation but there can be no doubt that it
became a prominent element in it within the first few days.

It eventuallybecame the central reason why Mr Rippon says he dropped the story.
6.

Mr Rippon stressed that this was an important part of the story for him and I
accept that is the case. There is no reason to doubt Mr Rippon’s position thatthe suggestion that a criminal investigation was dropped because of Savile’s
age – and that there was a letter to prove it – would have been a very strong
element in his view of the story.

267
268

12/055
12/057 – 12/061- 94 -

7.

Ms MacKean for the most part accepted that obtaining the police letter was
important.269 Ms Livingston helpfully provided a written account to the Review
but did not respond to the Review’s requests to attend for an interview.
However, I do not consider that that caused me any difficulty. Her e-mails at
the time suggest that she also recognised the importance of finding the police
letter and devoted considerable time and effort to it.270

8.

Mr Jones, however, takes a very different view. He consistently played down
the importance of the police letter and maintained that tracking down the letterand confirming that the criminal case against Savile was dropped because of
his age was never an important element of the story.271

9.

As I explained above, I do not accept Mr Jones’s account on this issue. It
does not ring true and it is not borne out by the facts.

An experienced

journalist such as Mr Jones would have understood immediately thesignificance of this issue as his cue for the piece amply demonstrates.
10.

It will be clear from the above that my conclusion is that the idea that Savile
had not been prosecuted because he was ‘old and infirm’ was regarded by theteam as an important part of the story and, in this regard, I accept Mr Rippon’s
evidence but I emphasise that that is not to say that the story could not havebeen broadcast without that element.

Did any inappropriate managerial pressure or consideration influence thedecision of Mr Rippon not to run the Savile story?
11.

The answer to this question is no. While there clearly were discussions about
the Savile story between Mr Rippon and his managers, Mr Mitchell and Ms
Boaden, I do not believe either of them exerted undue pressure on him.

12.

Mr Rippon has told us that the decision to drop the Savile story was his, andhis alone. I accept that the final decision was his. However, his decision was
clearly influenced by his two managers.

269

11/210For example: 12/048 - 049, 12/021
271
11/143 – 11/144; 11/154; 11/155 – 11/156 ; 10/045 paragraph 9.6
270- 95 -

13.

The first was Ms Boaden. This influence arose during her meeting with Mr
Rippon on 21 November, which I have discussed above.

During thatconversation, Ms Boaden made it clear to Mr Rippon that the fact that Savile
was dead was not a reason for lowering accepted editorial standards. The
message she was clearly sending was that the bar should not be lowered: amessage that I regard as reasonable.
14.

We cannot be sure whether the ‘Vision issues’ (i.e. the fact that the Christmas
Tribute programmes to Savile were planned) were discussed as such during
this conversation. While it would have been helpful to have been able toreach a conclusion on that, both Ms Boaden and Mr Rippon left thisconversation with the same recollection, in the sense that Ms Boaden had
made it clear that the implications for other parts of the BBC from the Savile
programme were irrelevant.

I am satisfied that, in this conversation, noattempt was made to influence Mr Rippon not to run the story because of theplanned Savile tribute programmes.
15.

The second person who influenced Mr Rippon was Mr Mitchell, during theconversation which I have concluded the two of them must have had on 29
November. It may be convenient to recap on the conclusions I set out on thisconversation above:-

16.

The best evidence I have is Mr Rippon’s statement that a conversation‘probably did’ take place.272

Although the evidence on this issue isunsatisfactory, relying upon what Mr Rippon says, I have reached theconclusion that a conversation in all likelihood did take place and that thisconversation had an important influence on the view of the strength of theNewsnight investigation which Mr Rippon expressed the following day. Thisview reflected a dramatic shift in the position he had expressed on 29
November. However, I have no reason to believe that what Mr Mitchell said
was inappropriate or that it was influenced by any wish on Mr Mitchell’s part toprotect the Savile tribute programmes.

I deal with the MRPL above, butwhatever the mistake of Mr Mitchell in that regard, he did take a step to cause
Mr Entwistle, as Director of Vision, to be warned about the risk to the tribute272

11/434, line 18- 96 -

programmes. Therefore, I conclude that it is very likely that what Mr Mitchellsaid influenced Mr Rippon but that this was motivated by Mr Mitchell’s caution
about the Savile story and his insistence on a proper and rigorous editorial
process.
Why was the story not pursued after December 2011?

Was Mr Rippon’sdecision to drop the story a reasonable one?
17.

In answering this question, it is absolutely essential of course that I denymyself the luxury of hindsight. In this case, of course, hindsight offers two
dramatic and relevant lessons. One is that there is now what appears to be avery strong case that Jimmy Savile was a predatory paedophile. The other isthat the Newsnight ‘McAlpine’ case demonstrates the catastrophic dangers ofmaking allegations based on faulty evidence. As Mr Rippon said: ‘I would saythat one of the great things about being a reporter is that if you get your story
on air you get great kudos for it, if you get your story on air and it is wrong, it isthe editor’s fault. I carry that burden….’273

18.

However, it has to be said clearly: There is no doubt in my mind that Mr Jonesand Ms MacKean were right about Savile - their belief that he had a history ofabusing young women was correct. They provided Newsnight with cogent
evidence of this. The programme could have broken the story almost a year
before the ITV documentary revealed it.

19.

Mr Rippon’s decision to drop the story was seriously flawed; he made a bad
mistake in not examining the evidence properly.

20.

It is important to note that Mr Rippon was not only Newsnight’s Editor. He was
the executive producer of the Savile investigation too, in other words he had
assumed the hands-on role of supervising the piece before it went to air.
There is no doubt in my mind that Mr Rippon should have viewed theinterview with [R1] (or at least the key extracts from it) and read the notes of
the interviews with the other Duncroft residents before making his decision. I
have seen the full uncut interview with [R1] which lasts just under an hour. To

273

11/373- 97 -

me she seemed credible and compelling. The Newsnight investigators
obviously thought so too. But the crucial opinion would have been Mr
Rippon’s. I cannot understand why he did not give himself that chance.
21.

Mr Rippon told me: ‘I don’t think seeing the interview... seeing something withan eye… gives you any more help in making a judgement about whether
something is true or not. I don’t believe that, I really don’t. I think the kind ofconcerns that I had, that I was weighing, would not have been swayed byhaving sat down and watched the interview’.274 I think this is a strange thing
for a television news journalist and editor to say. Common sense andexperience would surely suggest the opposite.

22.

I believe Mr Rippon was wrong not to have viewed the [R1] interview for
himself or to have looked in detail at the notes of other witnesses. But before
pulling the plug on the story I accept that Mr Rippon had, to varying degrees
at different times, doubts about the evidence that had been compiled. It wasunderstandable for him to be concerned about the reliance on a single oncamera interview with one victim and the fact that some of the women had
shared parts of their stories on Friends Reunited so might not be
independently remembering events and for him to wonder about the fact thatmost of the off-camera interviews had been done by telephone rather than inperson and initially by a relatively inexperienced researcher. But these doubts
would have carried much more weight in my view if they had beenaccompanied by proper scrutiny of the evidence that had been gathered.

23.

There was a further factor involved too. It is clear to me that the relationshipbetween Mr Rippon and his investigation team had all but broken down. I
accept that there were not screaming matches and open rows but, as it
became obvious that the story was not going to run, an element of personal
antagonism crept in. It comes across clearly in the personal e-mails sent by
Mr Jones and Ms MacKean to their friends and in the exasperated way Mr
Rippon describes, in particular, Mr Jones’s methods of working. He thought
Mr Jones was over-selling the story, literally ‘like a salesman’ he told us, andwas prematurely passing details of the investigation to other parts of the news

274

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department to try to build up an assumption that the story was going to go
ahead.
24.

In the days before the Savile investigation was finally halted, Mr Rippon had
therefore, effectively, set his face against running the story. I find thisparticularly difficult to understand, given that he told me that, when the story
was dropped, he ‘was kind of 60/70 plus per cent confident that the testimony
we had gathered was likely to be true’.275 The increasingly desperate efforts
that Mr Jones and Ms MacKean were making to change his mind only had theeffect of making it less rather than more likely that the story would run. In myview this goes quite long way to explain why the investigation was killed off
altogether rather than allowed to continue to gather more evidence. Mr Rippon
believed that the story had effectively been fatally undermined by the CPS
announcement. He also told us that shortage of resources meant he could notafford to let his team devote any more time to it.276 Mr Jones was not inclined
to bang his head against this particular wall any further. He believed that Mr
Rippon and the News department managers, Mr Mitchell and Ms Boaden, had
all decided (improperly in his view) that the story would not run,277 so he saw
no point in pressing a case that he thought was doomed to failure.278

Should material derived from the Savile investigation have been provided tothe police/relevant authorities?
25.

I have taken advice on this issue from Reed Smith and from the barrister
team.

26.

The advice I have received is that no obligation arose, as a matter of criminal
law, for the BBC or its employees to report and/or provide material orinformation obtained during the investigation to the police or other prosecuting
authorities on a voluntary basis.

27.

The background to this advice is, as I understand it, that, as the law does not
generally impose criminal liability for a failure to act, there is no general

275
276
277
278

11/371 lines 21-23
11/374 lines 12-13
10/051 paragraph 18.13
10/051 paragraph 18.14- 99 -

offence committed by failing to report the committing of a crime and no
general duty imposed by law or legal obligation to report the committing of acrime. In particular, there is no statutory offence of failing to disclose
information or suspicions relating to the commission of sexual offences andany such failure is also not an offence under the common law.
28.

I understand that there are a limited number of exceptions to the general
proposition, for example under the Terrorism Act 2000, the Proceeds of Crime
Act 2002 and the Road Traffic Act 1988. However, I am advised that none ofthose exceptions apply to the current situation.

29.

However, I am also advised, and I conclude, that the evidence in question
would probably have been of interest to the police and I believe that, sensibly,
it should have been provided to the police.

30.

The BBC had, from early November 2011, the following:1.

Direct evidence that Savile sexually abused girls of 14 to 15 years old,
including on BBC premises;

2.

Evidence from an individual who is said to have witnessed Glitter
having sexual intercourse with a girl of between 14 and 15 in Savile’s
dressing room on BBC premises (with a suggestion – later confirmed –that the identity of the woman abused by Glitter could be identified);3

Evidence suggesting possible criminal activity by Starr, also on BBC
premises.

31.

I am advised that, legally, as the events in question took place in the mid1970s, this might give rise to offences within the Sexual Offences Act 1956
and the Indecency with Children Act 1960.

Again, legally, this raisedquestions of rape, contrary to Section 1 of the 1956 Act, unlawful sexualintercourse with a girl under 13, contrary to Section 5 of the 1956 Act, unlawful
sexual intercourse with girls between 13 and 16, contrary to Section 6 of the1956 Act, indecent assault, contrary to Section 14 of the 1956 Act andindecency with a child, contrary to Section 1(1) of the 1960 Act.

- 100 -

32.

The evidence against Savile clearly could not, after his death, give rise to his
prosecution. However, in my view, that evidence might have been of interest
to the police or relevant authorities as it might have given rise to other lines ofenquiry, particularly in relation to other parties.

33.

I am told that the evidence against Glitter and Starr (whether correct or not)gave rise to a suspicion that a criminal offences had been committed and, asa result, in my view, the answer to the question as to whether the evidence
obtained might have been of interest to the police is yes.

34.

I do not know why this evidence was not passed on: whether or not there wasa legal obligation to do so, I would regard the BBC as an entity which shouldpass such information on whenever it receives and whether it arises from an
investigation which proceeds or does not proceed. It has been suggested tome in interviews that there is no internal process for passing on suchinformation. In my view, one of the lessons from this Review should be thatsuch an appropriate formal process should be introduced by the BBC. This
will accordingly be one of my recommendations.

- 101 -

PART FOUR - THE TRIBUTE PROGRAMMESIntroduction
1.

In this part I discuss the actions taken by the BBC to commission and prepare
the various tribute programmes about Savile in November and December
2011. I also look at the question whether the BBC should have cancelledthose programmes in light of the investigation being carried out at the time byNewsnight and whether there were any failings of management in this regard.

2.

My Review is not intended to examine in any detail the historic knowledge
within the BBC about Savile’s activities. That will be covered by Dame Janet
Smith’s Review. My Review has however seen some evidence that has abearing on the state of knowledge within the BBC at the time that the tributeprogrammes were commissioned. I consider that evidence here, in so far as
it is relevant to those tribute programmes.

3.

As a preliminary remark, it was notable from the evidence that there was very
little relevant communication between anyone in BBC News and anyone in
BBC Vision. The separation between News and Vision, about which muchhas been made, was very much apparent. This is of course important forjournalistic independence, but too strict a ‘firewall’ between the different partsof the BBC can itself cause problems, and, indeed, the ‘silo mentality’ which
did exist generally within the BBC, to which I refer at elsewhere in my report is
an issue of significance. Lord Patten perhaps explained this best. He told
me, after having obviously undertaken his own consideration of the material:‘It was like observing two parallel universes. There were people working on
programmes for television, light entertainment and so on, and there werepeople doing news and current affairs programmes, and it was as though they
were existing on different planets.’1

4.

The independence of News is rightly prized. There should of course be noquestion of any interference in News from Vision. I do not criticise those
involved in the making of the tribute programmes for being unaware of theNewsnight investigation. It does however bring home the importance of1

11/330, lines 6-10

‐ 102 ‐

ensuring that the established channels of communication between News andthe wider BBC (and so with Vision) are used to alert the BBC to News
activities that may have ramifications for the wider corporation or for somepart of it (such as Vision).

The MRPL is one such channel and a very

important one. I have already discussed the failures that occurred in respectof the use of the MRPL in Part Three. They should be borne in mind whenreading this part of my Report.
5.

Against that background, I consider the evidence provided to the Review
concerning the making of the tribute programmes.

Consideration of the preparation of an obituary for Savile
6.

One of the earliest pieces of evidence provided to the Review concerned
Savile and the potential preparation of an obituary for him. This was an email
chain between Nick Vaughan-Barratt and Mr Entwistle from late May 20102.

7.

Mr Vaughan-Barratt was the BBC’s Head of Events until late 2011, when heretired.

He had responsibility, among other things, for the preparation of

obituaries – pre-recorded programmes that could be transmitted when wellknown public figures died. It is widely known that all major broadcasters keepsuch programmes ready for use in the event of the death of, for example,
senior members of the Royal Family or very eminent politicians. The BBC
maintains such obituaries. It also maintains a very small number of such
obituaries for major figures in the entertainment industry but it is clear that thelist is short, partly because of the resources required to make suchprogrammes and partly because it would appear that the BBC is less keen on
such programmes than it was in the past.
8.

Mr Vaughan-Barratt told us that, in the normal course of his work, he would
have had discussions with senior figures in BBC Vision, particularly channel
controllers, about which prominent figures should be on the obituaries list.

2

12/001‐ 103 ‐

9.

Approximately three years ago there was a meeting of Vision staff at which
the name of Savile was raised as a possible subject for a BBC One preprepared obituary. Mr Vaughan-Barratt said in an email to Katie Taylor andRoger Mosey on 31 October 2012 that he had told the meeting he wasagainst the idea, first because of limited resources and secondly because:‘of unanswered questions and rumours regarding [Savile’s] personal life it
would be difficult, if not impossible, to make a film in advance of his death thatwould be appropriate to run on the night of his death. I also said that if it was
decided to make such a film that I would prefer not to make it because I had
known Savile some time ago and did not feel I could make an impartial film.’3

10.

There was apparently little further discussion at the meeting and no film was
made. Mr Vaughan-Barratt said he could not remember who else might havebeen at the meeting. 4

11.

In his interview with us, Mr Vaughan-Barratt gave a detailed account of his
own work with Savile on various television programmes, mainly during the1970s. He described in some detail what he (and others) viewed as Savile’s
unorthodox lifestyle, his ‘weird’ personality and his professed dislike ofchildren. 5 He also told us of his suspicion that Savile was gay. He also told
the Review that, on one occasion when he collected Savile for a day’s filming,
Savile emerged from the door of his flat with a girl whom they subsequently
dropped off at a local Catholic school. She was a schoolgirl but Mr VaughanBarratt said that she had not looked distressed and he had not remembered
her as being particularly young. 6 This had not struck him as particularly odd
at the time (and there is no reason why it should have done); he did not know,for example, whether she was a neighbour’s child who needed a lift, a friendof the family, or whether there was some other innocent explanation.

12.

Mr Vaughan-Barratt said that he had been aware of rumours about Savile but
also about many other public figures too, particularly in the world of show

3
4
5
6

12/33911/488, lines 15-16
11/490-11/494
11/495‐ 104 ‐

business. He stressed that he had not heard any specific stories about any
illegal activity until late in 2012. 7
13.

On 29 May 2010, more than a year before Savile’s death, Mr Vaughan-Barratt
sent an e-mail to Mr Entwistle, then the BBC’s Controller of Knowledge
Commissioning, saying:‘George, I understand jimmy [Savile] is very ill. We have no obit and I’m notsure we’d want one. What do you think?
I have a personal interest here: my first job in tv was on a JS show – I know
him well and saw the complex and sometimes conflicting nature of the man atfirst hand – if you know what I mean! Do you have an opinion? Mine is ironic,
flawed and fascinating. But all a long time ago! N’8

14.

Mr Entwistle replied:‘Thanks for this. I don’t think we need an obit … Would it be fair to reshow theLouis Theroux portrait if necessary? I can’t remember how edgy it was.’915.

Mr Vaughan-Barratt’s response was:‘Agree. I’d feel v queasy about obit. I saw the real truth!!! Have a good
break.’10

16.

Mr Vaughan-Barratt was asked what he was trying to say to Mr Entwistle in
the e-mail, and what he intended to convey by ‘the real truth’. He told us what
he was saying was:
‘It is Saturday afternoon. I have just heard that Savile is ill. We haven’t got an
obit for him. I don’t think we should make one. The guy is pretty complex anddifficult and there is a dark side.’11

17.

Mr Entwistle told us that he does not now recall these emails. 12 Mr Entwistle
said that he would have been hard pressed to understand what might have

7
8
9
10
11
12

11/49612/001
12/001
12/001
11/497, lines 14-16
10/029, paragraph 1.3‐ 105 ‐

been meant by the darker side of the Savile story. He remarked: ‘it is hard toknow what he means by that and what I would have taken from it’. 13
18.

The exchange between Mr Vaughan-Barratt and Mr Entwistle does notappear to have continued. As envisaged, no obituary was prepared.

We

asked Mr Vaughan-Barratt, Mr Entwistle, Jan Younghusband and Mr Cohen
whether or not Savile was a sufficiently big celebrity to merit a pre-preparedobituary. They all thought that he was not.
Discussions about obituaries and tributes after Savile’s death
19.

Savile died on 29 October 2011, some seventeen months after this email
exchange. There were then a number of e-mails designed to ensure that asuitable quote from the BBC was put out.

The Director General MarkThompson issued the following statement:‘I am very sad to hear of Sir Jimmy Savile’s death. From Top of the Pops to
Jim’ll Fix It, Jimmy’s unique style entertained generations of BBC audiences.
Like millions of our viewers and listeners, we will miss him greatly’.14

20.

The BBC’s news outlets were covering the story of Savile’s death and thefollowing day, 30 October, there was an internal BBC debate about the needfor any special programming to be broadcast. The controller of BBC One, Mr
Cohen, told the Review that such discussions were normal in the aftermath ofthe death of a celebrity like Savile. 15

21.

The first question was whether there was a pre-prepared obituary.

Nick

Vaughan-Barratt e-mailed his colleague Ms Younghusband to say:‘Some years go [sic] we decided not to make one in advance and that16
decision has been agreed by successive controllers.’

22.

It appears that the reference to agreement by ‘successive controllers’ wassomewhat over-stated. What Mr Vaughan-Barratt was referring to was the

13
14
15
16

11/112
12/002
11/062
12/003‐ 106 ‐

fact that the obituaries list is presented to incoming channel controllers, andthat Savile (despite being discussed on occasion) had not been put on thelist17. For Mr Vaughan-Barratt, this was not a ‘near miss’, 18 Savile did notcome near to meeting the relevant threshold. For his part, Mr Cohen did not
believe he was involved in any conversation about making an obituary for
Savile19. He said that, while he had some role in relation to obituaries, this did
not extend beyond looking at the list and making comments20 and occupied
only around 20 minutes of his time every six months. 21
23.

A few minutes later, after Ms Younghusband had acknowledged receipt of his
earlier email referring to the decision not to make an obituary in advance, Mr
Vaughan-Barratt sent a further, unprompted email adding that:‘We decided that the dark side to Jim (I worked with him for 10 years) would
make it impossible to make an honest film that could be shown close to
death. But maybe one could be made for later.’22

24.

Ms Younghusband replied that she completely understood23 and added:‘I’ve asked George [Entwistle] what he wants to do.’24

25.

Ms Younghusband told us that she had no particular idea what Mr VaughanBarratt had meant by ‘the dark side’. 25 She said that she had worked for acharity for some years and had heard rumours that Savile had mishandledcharity money. Other than that, she knew no more than that there had been
speculation about his sex life and that he had seemed ‘a pretty weird guy’. 26

26.

Later that day Mr Entwistle agreed that there was no need for a quickly
prepared obituary and suggested instead using archive footage: that is, the

17
18
19
20
21
22
23

24
25
26

11/485-11/488
11/489, lines 4-6
11/060-11/061
11/059-11/060
11/062
12/004
However, it is far from certain that she actually was of the same understanding as Mr
Vaughan-Barratt. See paragraph 25 below.
12/004
11/498-11/505
11/504-11/505‐ 107 ‐

BBC would ‘commemorate Sir JS by repeating some of the programming wealready have’. 27 He stated that he thought that BBC One ’may not be the rightplace for that’. 28 Mr Entwistle also added: ‘I look forward to catching up witheveryone’s thinking in the week ahead’.29 It does not appear that any such‘catch up’ in fact took place. Mr Cohen replied to the email around an hourlater, agreeing with Mr Entwistle that BBC One (i.e. the channel of which he
was the Controller) was probably not the right place for a Savile tribute basedon archive footage. 30
27.

Ideas

startedtocirculate

and

the

following morning,

31

October(coincidentally just as Mr Jones was pitching to Mr Rippon that Newsnightshould investigate the stories of Savile’s abuse of girls in the 1970s), Mr
Cohen came up with his own proposal. His idea, e-mailed to Mr Entwistle,
was to commission a special Christmas edition of ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ with a current
BBC personality taking the Savile role. In his email, Mr Cohen said ’It would
be a homage to him and would I think feel like a real Christmas treat’.31
28.

Before Mr Entwistle could reply, he was sent another e-mail, this time by Ms
Younghusband, saying‘I gather we didn’t prepare the obit because of the darker side of the story. So
something celebrating a particular part of his TV career is probably better
than the [life] story as there are aspects of this which are hard to tell’.32

Ms Younghusband’s email was also copied to Mr Cohen.
29.

Mr Entwistle then replied to Mr Cohen’s e-mail about the ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ special,saying: ’Great idea Danny. Please keep me posted’. 33 Mr Entwistle did not
reply to Ms Younghusband’s e-mail about ‘the darker side of the story’.

30.

This clearly raises questions for Mr Entwistle. He was Director of Vision: thehead of the BBC’s television service. He had been told by Mr Vaughan-Barratt

27
28
29
30
31
32
33

12/00612/00612/00612/007
12/00812/01012/013‐ 108 ‐

more than a year earlier (when in a different role) about the difficulties inreflecting Savile’s life and character on screen. He had been sent an e-mailby one of his colleagues that day that mentioned ‘the darker side of thestory’34 and at the same time, another colleague, Mr Cohen, was proposing ‘ahomage’ to Savile as a Christmas treat for viewers.
31.

When Mr Entwistle gave evidence to the Review he told us that he could notremember reading the e-mail from Ms Younghusband. He said he did notalways read her e-mails because she was out of the office a lot and often fell‘out of sync’ with e-mail exchanges. 35 He also told us:‘The fact that I had already communicated my lack of interest in an obit to Jan
the previous evening as well as my interest in archive to Danny, is a possible
reason why I might not have read Jan’s… e-mail … which was in a separate
chain’.36

32.

Given the potential importance of the email from Ms Younghusband, aforensic examination of Mr Entwistle’s e-mail account took place to see
whether it had, in fact, been read. This process suggested that the e-mail had
been delivered to two separate inboxes, one normally used by Mr Entwistle
and one by his PA. The email was shown as having been ‘read’ in both email
accounts. However, it was not possible to establish the exact date when theemail was read or whether it was read by both (or just one of) Mr Entwistle
and his PA.

33.

In a follow-up statement to the Review submitted on behalf of Mr Entwistle,
three points were made:It was said that Mr Vaughan-Barratt and Ms Younghusband’s emails
envisaged the possibility of a televised obituary of Savile and that any
such suggestion would have been unthinkable if they had suspected
Savile of serious misconduct.

If either Mr Vaughan-Barratt or Ms

Younghusband had had real suspicions of misconduct, they would

34
35
36

12/01011/113‐11/114
10/015‐ 109 ‐

have mentioned that to Mr Entwistle as it would have been a material
factor in any decision by him about whether to agree to an obituary.
None of the emails received by Mr Entwistle referred to abuse or
misconduct and were not "red flag" emails; nor did they even suggestthat an obituary would be intrinsically inappropriate.



As already noted, Mr Entwistle does not now remember the email
exchanges and only became aware of them when they were recovered
in recent searches of his email accounts for the purposes of the
Review.

34.

Mr Entwistle said that he did not read the email referring to ‘the darker side of
the story’ and he does not believe it was sent in an effort to warn him. In myview the phrase carries enough impact that, if he had read the email, I think it
is highly likely that he would have spoken first to Ms Younghusband and thento Mr Vaughan-Barratt (the originator of the ‘dark side’ phrase who had
worked with Savile for many years). It is at least possible that a conversation
with Mr Vaughan-Barratt would have given Mr Entwistle some pause forthought about the planned Christmas tributes. Mr Vaughan-Barratt could, ofcourse, have spoken to Mr Entwistle or emailed him direct if he had wanted toalert him further.

35.

The e-mail from Ms Younghusband warning about ‘the darker side of thestory’ had also been sent to Mr Cohen, the originator of the Jim’ll Fix It‘homage’ to Savile. He too told us that he did not recollect reading it, in fact
he said ‘I know I didn’t see it at the time’. 37 He could not recall why he did notread it, but speculated that this was because the debate about the broadcastof an obituary had been concluded the previous night, during which it was
decided that any obituary would not be on his channel, and so there was noneed to read any more about it (although it is perhaps rather hard tounderstand how he could be so sure about the subject matter without opening37

11/063, line 22‐ 110 ‐

the e-mail)38. As with Mr Entwistle, Mr Cohen said that he had no knowledge
of Savile’s behaviour.
The tribute programmes
36.

On the afternoon of 31 October 2011, the BBC One team was alerted to thefact that BBC North, based in Leeds, had already commissioned an
independent production company, True North, to make a quick turnaroundprogramme about Savile and his broadcast career to be shown in the BBC
North region. Mr Cohen’s initial view was that this was ’more likely BBC2’39
but, after being told the name of the independent company involved, decided‘as it is True North I think I’d be happy to take this for Network…. If you arealso happy with that I’ll let George E know...’. 40 A budget was agreed and it
was decided that the programme should be broadcast nationally on BBC One
on 11 November 2011, two days after Savile’s funeral.

37.

As explained at paragraph 29 above, the idea for a Jim’ll Fix It-style “homage”
to Savile was picked up and, on 8 November 2011, got the green light toproceed to production. Shane Richie was chosen as the host. It was intended
that this would be broadcast on Christmas Day.

38.

A further tribute was also developed to celebrate Savile’s career on Top of thePops: he had been the first presenter on Top Of The Pops, had hosted it for
20 years and had appeared on the final show.

The idea, using archive

footage, was developed throughout November 2011.
39.

On 29 November, the BBC formally announced its Christmas programming,
including the Savile tributes although the Shane’ll Fix It programme had beenannounced separately, on 15 November. The ‘Shane’ll Fix It’ special was
moved from Christmas Day to Boxing Day at 5:45pm because of a clash with
ITV’s programme schedule.

38
39
40

11/063‐11/065
12/01412/015‐ 111 ‐

40.

There is no need for me to consider the work carried out to commission andproduce the Christmas TV programmes about Savile. I should however note
three things:
First, the Review was supplied with a large amount of email
correspondence between those involved in the Shane’ll Fix It tributeand the Top Of The Pops tribute, and those involved in deciding toscreen the True North tribute. Not one of these emails gives any hintthat any of those involved in commissioning, preparing, filming or
broadcasting these programmes had any awareness of any rumours or
allegations about Savile relevant to this Review. The only hints seenby the Review are the ‘darker side’ emails discussed above; I was notprovided with any other such emails.

Second, the emails did not disclose any contact between News andthose involved in the Savile tributes. Apart from the limited extent set
out in Part Three, there appears to have been no (documented) contact
between anyone connected to the tributes and anyone connected to
the Newsnight investigation in November or December 2011.



Third, I note that those behind the Shane’ll Fix It programme tried tohave it picked up as a series. A decision was taken in February 2012
by Mr Cohen and Mark Linsey (the Head of Entertainment
Commissioning) that a series would not be commissioned.

I amsatisfied this was based solely on the merits of the programme and had
nothing to do with rumours about Savile or the aborted Newsnight
investigation (which was by this time being reported in the press). 41
Missed opportunities?
41.

I have seen no evidence that anyone involved in the making of the tributeprogrammes knew of any allegations against or rumours about Savile. Were
there nonetheless opportunities to discover these and to evaluate whether or

41

11/057‐11/058‐ 112 ‐

not the programmes should have been commissioned, produced, or ultimately
broadcast? I set out below four possibilities.
First, the ‘dark’ or ‘darker’ side emails. As I have set out, the position isthat on 31 October 2011 Mr Vaughan-Barratt sent an e-mail to twosenior figures, the Director of Vision and the Controller of BBC1,
alerting them to the potential of a ‘darker’ side of the story about Savile(with the Director of Vision having received a similar email 17 months
earlier). Both the Director of Vision and the Controller of BBC1 saythey either did not recall reading the email, although there was lively email correspondence being conducted on the same afternoon about
the proposed ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ special programme.

In one sense this looks like a missed opportunity for further questions
to be asked. As both Mr Entwistle and Mr Cohen say they did not readthe emails, the question is somewhat academic. I do not regard thatemail as a ‘smoking gun’ but it indicates to me that there wasknowledge, not just rumour, within BBC Vision about the unsavouryside of Savile’s character at the time the Christmas tribute programmes
were planned. If either email had been read it was at least possiblethat further questions would have followed.

Second, on 28 November 2011, Mr Cohen met with Mr Mitchell. At thispoint Mr Mitchell was aware of the Savile investigation and of thetribute programmes – he had of course already asked Ms Boaden to
inform Mr Entwistle. He could thus have taken the opportunity to tell
Mr Cohen that there was an investigation into Savile.



As regards meetings with Mr Mitchell, Mr Cohen said that these took
place ‘maybe every four to six months’. This could be classed as a
missed opportunity to alert Mr Cohen, someone very senior in Visionand in particular in BBC One, the channel on which the ‘Shane’ll Fix It’tribute was to be shown. Indeed, Mr Cohen told the Review that hewished someone had told him. 42 He said if he had been told there was42

11/066‐11/068‐ 113 ‐

an outstanding criminal allegation against Savile he would have held
off on the Shane’ll Fix It programme. If he had been told that there
were allegations that could not have been stood up as a news piece,
he would have sought advice from BBC lawyers and Editorial Policy
and expected that the programme would have been delayed at least. 43
In any event, he would have gone to Mr Entwistle to discuss thematter44.


Mr Cohen was clear that cancelling the programme would not havebeen a big deal. It was not very expensive to make and for Mr Cohen it
was wrong to suggest that dropping the programme would have had
the effect of “destroying our Christmas ratings". As he powerfully put it:‘This was not the programme at the heart of our Christmas. This was a 5.45
programme on Boxing Day. You know, BBC1's Christmas story was notdependent on this 30 minutes of teatime television.’45

Mr Entwistle’s evidence to the Select Committee was to similar effect;
Lord Patten also made a similar comment to the Review. 46 Mr Cohen’s
evidence also chimed with that of Mr Rippon in so far as he said that
he never considered it would be a big deal for Vision to change theschedule.

Indeed, the evidence of Mr Cohen about the schedule

supports my conclusion that there was no pressure applied to Mr
Rippon to drop the Newsnight story to protect the Christmas
programming line-up, to which I refer at in Part Three.
Returning to the meeting between Mr Cohen and Mr Mitchell on 28
November 2011, as I have said it is possible to consider this as a
missed opportunity to alert an appropriate person in Vision.

Thereshould however be no need to do so, and there should have been noneed for Mr Mitchell to tell Mr Cohen about the investigation at a
relatively informal meeting, as there was a formal mechanism in place
to ensure that stories that were brought to Vision’s attention: that is the
43
44
45
46

11/068‐11/070
11/07011/06911/330‐11/331‐ 114 ‐MRPL which I have discussed in detail in Part Three of this Report andto which I return briefly below.
42.

The third candidate is the short conversation between Ms Boaden and Mr
Entwistle at the awards lunch on 2 December 2011. I have considered thisconversation in detail in Part Three.

43.

As will be obvious, the fourth candidate, and in my view a true and mostfundamental missed opportunity, was the MRPL. As I have already set out inPart Three, the Savile story was not a fast turnaround news piece, it could
have been kept on the MRPL and indeed it should have been. Mr Mitchell’s
mistake in taking the story off the list, rather than ensuring it was on the list,
denied the BBC the proper opportunity at an appropriate level to consider the
Savile story as a whole: that is, the ‘two sides’ to it, that being put forward by
Vision and that being investigated by Newsnight. It seems to me clear thatthe failure to ensure the story was on the MRPL was a significant missed
opportunity that might have led to the BBC not showing tribute programmes toSavile.

‐ 115 ‐

PART FIVE - EVENTS BETWEEN DECEMBER 2011 AND SEPTEMBER 20121.

In this part I consider the period after 12 December 2011 up to September
2012.

20 December 2011 – Christmas Drinks Function
2.

On 20 December 2011, Mr Thompson hosted a Christmas drinks function,
where an attendee, Caroline Hawley, broached the subject of the dropped
Newsnight investigation with him.

3.

Ms Hawley had previously worked for Newsnight but was at this time (as she isnow) a World Affairs correspondent in the World Affairs Unit.1 She knew Mr
Jones and Ms MacKean, and on the day of the function had a brief
conversation with one or both of them (she cannot recall which) where she wasinformed of their displeasure at the dropping of the Newsnight investigation.2
Ms Hawley told me that neither of the pair put her up to raising the matter withMr Thompson, although she told me that they appeared ‘angry enough’ for her‘to think that if I've got the opportunity to ask someone about it, I will...’.3

4.

While Ms Hawley told me that her recollection of her conversation with Mr
Thompson is not particularly clear, she has subsequently been approached by
two people who say they witnessed the conversation.4 One told her that Mr
Thompson said that there was a ‘firewall between him and this kind of decisionmaking’.

Ms Hawley does not herself recall Mr Thompson using the term

‘firewall’, but does recall him saying that this was not a decision he would havebeen involved in.5 Ms Hawley told me that she formed the impression that Mr
Thompson had no knowledge of the story, as did the second witness to theconversation.6 Neither recalls if the word ‘paedophile’ was used or not.

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5.

Mr Thompson recalls this as a large function, with approximately 100 people
present, where he attempted to meet all of the attendees.7 Mr Thompson told
us that this was the first time he had heard of the Newsnight investigation.8 His
recollection was that Ms Hawley commented that he ‘must be worried about theNewsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile’.9 Mr Thompson said that his reply
was ‘very noncommittal’ as the conversation was:‘... a little bit like the Lord Chief Justice meeting someone at a cocktail party who says,"You must be worried about this murder trial that is going on in Liverpool". There isn't
a way of engaging with it which is going to be helpful. The right thing to do is to takeaway the thought and to check it out, as it were, with the relevant part of theorganisation, rather than sort of sailing into a, "Really, do tell me more", sort of thing’.10

6.

Mr Thompson did not recall using the term ‘firewall’, but said that if it had beensuggested he was involved in the decision-making he ‘may well have put [his]hands up... and said, “No, I wouldn't have been”’.11

7.

Mr Thompson could not remember any specifics, but he says he did ‘check itout’ with BBC News:‘I cannot remember precisely what I did except to say that at some point shortly
thereafter, and it may have been on the phone, it may have been in person, this wasvery close to Christmas and if it was in the next 24/48 hours it would have been on thephone if it was later it might have been in person, it might have been at the start ofJanuary. I raised it with colleagues in BBC News. I have to say I can't remember
precisely who I raised it with. I think it was probably Helen [Boaden], it might havebeen Steve Mitchell. And… I believe it was Helen who came back to me and said in
pretty short order: oh well, they were doing an investigation into Jimmy Savile… but
the programme themselves decided not to proceed with it for editorial or journalistic
reasons’. 12

8.

Mr Thompson said that this struck him as entirely normal, and that he did notlearn any specifics of the investigation, and remained ignorant of the fact thatthe investigation was into allegations of sexual abuse.13 As Mr Thompson put

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it, he ‘received reassurance and indeed got the sense the whole matter was
closed, crossed it off my list and went off to worry about something else’.14
Late December – Mr Goslett’s Investigations begin
9.

The day following the drinks function (21 December 2011) Helen Deller emailed
a number of people, including Mr Rippon, to advise that Miles Goslett, afreelance journalist writing for the Independent, had information about the
dropped investigation.15

Ms Deller identified this story as having two‘elements’: first, a BBC cover up of misconduct ‘on our doorstep’ and secondly,that this was in order to protect the Savile tributes. Ms Deller suggested apress response saying that ‘…the angle we were pursuing could not be
substantiated’, and that people were to brief that:‘...yes we did interview an individual about Saville [sic] with a view to pursuing a story
involving CPS and Police. We had been led to believe there had been a recent
investigation into the allegations but these were dropped. However we could not gain
sufficient information to stand this up’.

10. Mr Rippon received this email when he was at home over the Christmas break.
He responded, he told me, from memory and without drawing on any source
material,16 as follows:‘It’s not quite right. There was a police/CPS investigation recently in 2007. It was intoan ‘historic indecent assault’ . However it was not pursued for lack of evidence. We
were trying to establish if it was true as the woman alleged that it was dropped
because of Savilles [sic] age/celebrity status. We could not establish that was thecase’.
PS the main allegation she made about herself did not take place at the BBC… She
alleged some other incidents did involving others.” 17

11. This response gives the clear impression that ‘the woman’ referred to in themain paragraph was alleging that the Police investigation was dropped
because of Savile’s age and status was also the ‘she’ referred to in thepostscript. This is not correct - they were two different women - as Mr Rippon

14
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accepted when he was asked about this in his interview with us.18 This elisionof the two women’s accounts was extremely unfortunate and the consequencesof the error were profound and resonated for months to come.
12. When it was suggested to Mr Rippon that this elision occurred because hedidn’t recall the detail entirely correctly when replying to Ms Deller’s email, he
agreed ‘to a point’, but qualified this by saying that ‘the initial elision... occurredbecause of the way the story originally evolved in [his] mind, in [his] discussions
with Meirion [Jones].’19
13. Ms Deller then worked Mr Rippon’s comments up into a final response (subject
to confirmation of factual accuracy), which was accepted by Mr Rippon:“... [I] would brief yes a BBC crew did interview an individual about Savile. We
understood there was a relatively recent CPS/Police investigation into historic indecent
assault that was not pursued for lack of evidence. It was alleged it was dropped
because of Savile’s age but we could not stand this up.” 20

14. Neither Mr Jones nor Ms MacKean were involved or consulted about this line.21
Mr Mitchell told me that he was not involved as he was out of the country at thetime.22January 2012 – The Sunday Mirror Story
15. Early in the new year, the BBC became aware that the Sunday Mirror was
preparing a story on the demise of the Savile investigation.

Ms Deller

unsuccessfully attempted to dissuade the paper from running the story.23 The
story, which was published on 8 January, included details of the Newsnight
investigation, and quoted a “BBC Insider” in the following terms:“People are up in arms that they spent so long and committed two months of time andeffort only for this to be canned... Someone, somewhere should have realised that areport trying to uncover a dark side of one of the BBC’s favourite sons was a silly thing

18
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to do... It cost thousands of pounds. This is cash which could have been used on othershows that has been poured down the drain.”24

16. Mr Jones made the point to Mr Rippon in an email on the afternoon of 8
January 2012 that the quoted insider ‘sounds like someone who thought weshouldn’t have done it in the first place and probably not someone from
Newsnight – unless they just made that bit up’.25 In his interview, Mr Jones
denied that he was the source of this story, and said he did not know who thesource was.26 Mr Jones says that he did not speak to any journalist about theNewsnight story until the news of the ITV story broke many months later in late
September 2012.27
17. The Press Office, however, was clearly of the firm view by this stage that Mr
Jones was very probably the source of at least some of the leaks. In an email
later that day, James Hardy, then Head of Communications for BBC News,
emailed Ms Deller to tell her that he had read the story and that while he was
unconcerned by it, he would ‘drip poison about Meirion’s suspected role’ if he
got the opportunity.28 Mr Hardy, to his credit, made it clear to the Review that
he deeply regretted the use of the phrase ‘drip poison’. In a written response,
he said that, in the heat of the moment, he chose a phrase which was
unfortunate.

It appears that the phrase was driven by his anger and hisfrustration and he made it clear to me that his intention was not to speak toanyone outside the BBC, but to complain about what he regarded as very
damaging leaks to somebody senior in BBC News.
18. Mr Rippon suggested that Mr Hardy’s distrust of Mr Jones could have stemmed
from an earlier incident where (although he could not recall details) Mr Hardy
felt that Mr Jones had misled the Press Office.29 Similarly, Ms Boaden told methat she now knows that Mr Jones had ‘a very long track record of being
suspected of leaking’.30

Mr Jones, for his part, denied that he had any

relationship with Mr Hardy beyond a single telephone conversation, and
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25
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28
29
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specifically denied that he had ever done him a bad turn.31 However, it seems
clear that by this stage there had been a corrosion of trust between the Press
Office and Mr Jones, who was regarded by many in BBC management as a
man inclined to leak.
19. Mr Mitchell and Ms Boaden were both at pains to point out that the fact that Mr
Jones was considered to be inclined to leak did not mean that he was persona
non grata within BBC News. Throughout this period he was still being trusted
to, as Ms Boaden put it ‘do some journalism’.32

However, Ms Boaden didsuggest that one reason why nobody sat down with Mr Jones to get his versionof the underlying facts was that by this point he was ‘regarded as
untrustworthy’,33 observing that:‘... it's a sort of paradoxical thing that you can have people in the BBC who you
suspect may be leaking, but you actually still engage with them in terms of theirprofessional life, their journalism. There is a culture of leaking at the BBC’. 34

20. Another reason, Ms Boaden suggested, was that Mr Jones would not be theright person to go to:‘... you have to decide what you think the facts are that you want to explore... So theallegation is a cover-up of a Newsnight investigation. So you wouldn't necessarily go
to Meirion Jones to get the facts on that, since it is suspected that Meirion is the
person who has decided it is a cover up’.” 35

21. Mr Mylrea told me that throughout the affair the ‘scale, speed and nature ofbriefing was astonishing’,36 and that this made the task of the Press Office‘exceptionally difficult’.37

While he could not pinpoint the time at which heformed this view, Mr Mylrea told me that he reached the conclusion that there
had been a breakdown of trust within the Newsnight team.38
22. It is evident that Mr Jones’ unhappiness as to the demise of the Savile
investigation had not lessened over the New Year, as on 5 January he wrote a
31
32
33
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35
36
37
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‘Happy New Year’ email to a colleague referring to the ‘outrageous’ and ‘nonjournalistic’ reasons why the story did not air.39 Mr Jones confirmed to me thatby this he meant management pressure prompted by the Savile tributeprogrammes.40 It does not appear that Mr Jones shared this view with Mr
Rippon, who told me that, throughout this period, he remained of the view that
Mr Jones accepted that he had made the decision for editorial reasons.41
Consistent with this, when Ms Gibbons and Mr Rippon speculated as to who
the source of leaks to the media around this time might be, neither appears tohave suspected Mr Jones.42 When I asked him, Mr Rippon told me that Mr
Hardy did not share his suspicions regarding Mr Jones with him at the time.43
23. Mr Thompson said that the Sunday Mirror story, and all stories at the start of2012, including the Oldie story, passed him by as he was unusually busy at thetime.44 I have no reason to doubt what Mr Thompson told us.
February 2012 – The ‘Oldie’ Story
24. The next media story dealing with the Newsnight investigation appeared thefollowing month in the ‘Oldie’ magazine, trailed in Guido Fawkes’ blog on 8
February, the day before publication.
25. The Oldie piece was authored by Mr Goslett, who contacted the BBC Press
Office on 16 January seeking details of who had decided not to run the report,
and of when Mr Thompson and the BBC2 Controller were first made aware of
it.45
26. The trailer in the Guido Fawkes blog, published on 8 February, included thefollowing:’Apparently The Oldie will reveal that the Newsnight report contained evidence that theabuse of minors involving Savile that took place on BBC premises in the 1970s andthat two other celebrities – both still alive – were involved as well. Boom…
39
40
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- 122 -

The BBC said in December that Newsnight’s report was never aired because there
was not enough proof, but that line is now looking shaky. The article will allege thatMark Thompson has known of this contentious story for weeks. It seems there could
be some intriguing questions for the DG to answer in the coming days…’46

27. This indicates that, by this stage, allegations that abuse occurred on BBC
premises, and involved celebrities who were not themselves the focus of theNewsnight investigation, were being highlighted.
28. Mr Rippon told me that at this time his role was very limited, and that heresponded only to Press Office requests that he needed to have a view on, andthat he ‘didn't consider the fact that the angles seemed to be evolving slightly’.47
Mr Rippon did, however, email Ms Deller and Mr Mitchell on the day the Guido
Fawkes post appeared, telling them that ‘The evidence about BBC premises
was anecdotal, second hand and forty years old’.48 He explained to me that
this was a reference to the allegations from [R1] against Gary Glitter, and that
he meant ‘second-hand in the sense that it was about her witnessing something
happening to somebody else, whom she could not identify, rather than being
the victim of something herself on the BBC premises’, although he accepted it
was a first hand account of a sexual assault on somebody else.49
29. Also on 8 February, Mr Thompson’s office was approached by the Daily
Telegraph for comment about whether Mr Thompson was aware of the‘Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Saville [sic] and Duncroft School?’. Thisemail was forwarded without any covering note to Mr Mylrea and Mr
Thompson.50 Mr Mylrea responded within fifteen minutes, advising that it was
being passed to the Press Office for response.51 The proposed article waspicked up by Mr Payne, among others, which led to a conversation between Mr
Payne and either Ms Cecil or Mr Thompson about whether it would ever be thecase that Mr Thompson would intervene to get a story dropped. Mr Payne was‘told very clearly that he would not and said he did not on this occasion’.

46
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30. Mr Thompson told me that his understanding was that the Press Office had,
after talking to Mr Rippon, satisfied themselves of the propriety of his actions
and concluded that they were dealing with ‘relatively low level mischievous
stories with no foundation and they could get on with rebutting them’.52
31. After the Oldie piece was published, Mr Mitchell emailed Mr Rippon in thefollowing terms:‘The idea this was dropped for corporate reasons is fundamentally wrong as we know,
does anyone on your team think otherwise? What I'm not sure is the serious allegationthat we uncovered evidence unknown to the police and haven't passed that on... is thattrue?’ 53

32. Mr Rippon replied a little over an hour later as follows:'Our entire story was based on what they told us, so we have no other evidence. The
police have interviewed the women already. So that allegation is not true. Neither, as
you know, is the charge that this was dropped for anything other than editorial
reasons. Liz McKean [sic] and Meirion [Jones] worked on the story. Neither has everalleged to me that it was dropped for anything other than editorial reasons.’ 54

33. The statement about the Police having already interviewed the women is, as
we now know, incorrect, although Mr Rippon told me that he thought it correct
at the time, on the basis of how the story had been described to him.55
34. The day after the Oldie story was published, a piece appeared in the Daily
Telegraph, also containing allegations of a cover-up, accompanied by quotes
from a ‘BBC News source’, who was quoted as saying:‘The extreme nature of the claims about Savile meant that the Newsnight report wasgoing to seriously compromise the lavish BBC tributes scheduled to run later the samemonth…
And second, the allegations directly involved the BBC, in that the woman who gave theinterview said that she and others were abused by Savile on BBC premises.’56

35. In response to this, the BBC Press Office suggested that it would be helpful tohave a response from Mr Rippon, as editor of the programme, which could be
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used to respond to any requests for comment.57 Mr Mitchell supported thissuggestion as ‘The allegations are personally damaging for your credibility as
an editor, Peter, so it [would be] good to put your name [behind] the denial’.58
At this time, Mr Mitchell had not seen any of the underlying documentation, or
discussed the matter with Ms MacKean or Mr Jones; he was relying entirely on
what Mr Rippon had told him before Christmas.59
36. Mr Rippon then emailed Mr Jones, telling him that he was contemplating
making a formal statement denying the allegations, noting that the allegation
regarding withholding evidence from the police was ‘seriously damaging’.60 Mr
Rippon asked Mr Jones for confirmation that ‘Everything we got was from thesame women the police spoke to was it not?’. Mr Jones responded, warningthat if a statement was issued it would ‘give this legs’, but suggesting that any
statement conclude by stating ‘we have not withheld any information from thepolice and we would of course be happy to talk to them about any information
we have gathered’.61 In the next paragraph, Mr Jones went on to point out thatthe investigation did not begin until after Savile’s death, such that a prosecution
against him was no longer possible, but that:‘We did have information the police did not have in 2007 because we found anothervictim [R1] - who did an on-camera interview about being sexually abused while
underage by Savile - but he was already dead by then so it wasn’t possible for thepolice to prosecute him. She did tell us about Gary Glitter having sex with anunderage girl in Jimmy Savile's dressing room in 1974 but she could not identify thegirl and in any case, Glitter is already on the paedophile register.’

37. Thus, it seems that the answer to Mr Rippon’s question ‘Everything we got wasfrom the same women the police spoke to, was it not?’ was ‘not quite’. Mr
Rippon acknowledged in his interview that he ought to have read Mr Jones’
reply more clearly as:‘he's clearly telling me there something that should have alerted me to not repeat theerror that I eventually made in the blog...’But that:
57
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‘In mitigation I would say that this is 10 February. There is no active investigation. I'm
reading this in the context of replying to a press enquiry, unaware of what is going to
unfold down the line, so I think I would have just read the first paragraph and been -and took the first paragraph from that, and I didn't pay enough attention to the second
paragraph.’ 62

38. In his interview with us, Mr Jones sought to justify his assertion that no
information was withheld from the Police on the basis that Savile was dead,and that the material which they had gathered about Glitter was inconclusive.63
He did, however, accept that his suggested wording ought to have made thedistinction between not withholding any information and not knowingly
withholding information thought to be of evidential value.64 He also acceptedthat this judgement was properly one for the Police and the CPS.65 In my view,
this concession was rightly made. Plainly the judgement wasn’t one for Mr
Jones or his Newsnight colleagues. Mr Jones added that he felt he had a‘safety net’ because of Mr Williams-Thomas’s involvement, as if Mr WilliamsThomas, as a former Police Officer, felt that there was something which the
Police urgently required, he would have taken action.66
39. Mr Rippon did decide to provide the Press Office with a personal statement,
and circulated a draft on the morning of 10 February which stated:‘It is absolutely untrue that the Newsnight investigation was dropped for anything otherthan editorial reasons. We have been very clear from the start that the piece was notbroadcast because we could not establish enough facts to make it a Newsnight story.
To say otherwise is false and very damaging to the BBC and individuals. To allege that
we are withholding evidence from the police is also damaging and false. I note that a
number of newspapers are using the fact that we have not broadcast something to put
the allegations into the public domain themselves.’ 67

40. Mr Mitchell suggested that the last line be dropped,68 and the remaindersubsequently hardened into the BBC’s response.
41. Also on 10 February, Mr Jones sent Mr Rippon a lengthy email speculating as
to who might be leaking material to Mr Goslett, which Mr Rippon then
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forwarded to Mr Mitchell, who commented (I suspect with his tongue firmly
planted in his cheek) that Mr Jones’s energy could not be faulted.69 Mr Rippon
told me that Mr Jones’s note was not prepared at his request, although it
appears that he had asked Mr Rippon who he thought had been leaking.70
When I suggested that this question was asked with a strong background viewthat the source of the leak was probably Mr Jones, and that Mr Jones’s email
was his attempt to say (in a slightly obscure way) that it wasn’t him, Mr Rippon
agreed.71
42. At the foot of the email chain which Mr Rippon forwarded to Mr Mitchell was Mr
Jones’s earlier reply regarding what material had been provided to the Police,
although Mr Mitchell told me that he did not notice this at the time.72
43. A few days later, on 13 February, Mr Jones was forwarded an email from amember of the public which was sent to Newsnight’s contact email address.73
This was from a former BBC staff member who had herself witnessed, in
Savile’s dressing room, sexual activity between Savile and a girl of 13 or 14.
Mr Jones followed this up,74 and passed this information to Mr WilliamsThomas.75 Mr Rippon does not recall seeing this email, and says that it was
not the subject of any discussion at Newsnight that he was aware of.76 Mr
Jones told me that he did not show it to Mr Rippon as ‘he didn't want evidence’,and that nothing would come of it in any event as the Tributes had beenbroadcast.77
April 2012 – Mr Goslett’s Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) Request
44. On 16 April 2012, Mr Goslett made a request of the BBC under FOIA seeking
disclosure of material produced by Mr Thompson, Ms Boaden, Mr Rippon and
Mr Cohen relating to Savile, details of any meetings relating to the Newsnight
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investigation, confirmation of whether the BBC had any contact with the police
regarding Savile, and ‘full details of all legal communications arising from
Newsnight's investigation of 2011 into claims he sexually molested minors on
BBC premises in the 1970s’.78
45. The eventual response was made on 18 May, in which Mr Goslett was told thatthe BBC had interpreted the final request as relating to BBC News, and that
therefore all three questions were covered by the exemption in FOIA formaterial held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature.79
told me that he had no knowledge of this request.

80

Mr Thompson

I accept this.

August/September 2012 - The Sunday Times Story
46. On 22 August, the Sunday Times sent Ms Deller an email notification (trailed, itwould appear, by a phone call the previous day) that it would be publishing astory about the Savile allegations.81 This email also said that the story would
explore the angle that a Newsnight story into the allegations ‘was cancelled at
the last minute at the behest of senior staff’, and that ITV was planning a
documentary on the subject for broadcast in the Autumn.
47. After discussion as to what response to make, the proposed responses (inquestion and answer format) were forwarded to Mr Mitchell to ‘cast his eye overthem for accuracy’.82 Mr Mitchell approved these responses83, which included
the following:‘We were pursuing a particular angle relating to the CPS/Police which we were unable
to substantiate and which was therefore not broadcast. Any suggestion that the story
was dropped for anything other than editorial reasons is completely untrue.’ 84

48. After this, the draft response went to Ms Boaden,85 who commented that ‘Someof these allegations are highly litigious and we need to make clear we would
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take them very seriously indeed and would seek legal redress’.86

The

responses also appear to have been cleared by the BBC’s lawyers.
49. On 29 August, Mr Rippon was sent a copy of what by then had become aresponse email, rather than the ‘question and answer’ email which Mr Mitchell
had originally approved. It is not clear whether Mr Rippon was ever shown acopy of the question and answer email, although it seems that he was not. In
any event, the response email also contained the quoted passage above whichstated that Newsnight was ‘pursuing a particular angle relating to the
CPS/Police’ which, as Mr Rippon accepts, ought to have been qualified as it
told part, but not all, of the story.87 However, Mr Rippon did not suggest such a
qualification, and instead replied within half an hour, saying that the response
email was fine with him.88 This response was then sent to the Sunday Times
later that day.89
50. Later that day, Mr Rippon emailed Ms Boaden and Mr Mitchell (copied to Ms
Deller) to ask whether he ought to be briefing ITV about his position, statingthat:‘I dropped it because we were unable to establish any institutional failings by any party
so we were left with very old allegations that were more sexual harassment thanassault, made by woman [sic] who’s evidence would have been undermined in a court
because of their known character.’ 90

51. This email appears to have been written quickly, and it seems likely that‘woman’ should have read ‘women’. Further, it seems that Mr Rippon could nothave had the allegation of sex in the dressing room in mind when he made thiscomment. Even making such allowances, it is obvious that that this email fairly
seriously underplays the case on the basis of what Mr Rippon then knew.
When I put this to Mr Rippon, he explained that:

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’It's clearly written in frustration at this story not going away. …, I would have phrased
it more accurately had I known it was going to become subject to an inquiry such as
this.’ 91

52. Despite his evident frustration at the fact the story was refusing to go away, Mr
Rippon told me that he continued to operate from memory, and did not go backto the source material to refresh his memory.92 In addition, he did not sit down
and discuss matters with Mr Jones or Ms MacKean. When I asked Mr Rippon if
this was because it was a raw subject between him and them, he told me that
this was potentially the case, as by then he had formed ‘suspicions about what
was fuelling a lot of the press stories’.93
53. The 29 August response was not the BBC’s last word on the proposed Sunday
Times story. On 6 September a letter was sent from external law firm Mills &Reeve to the Sunday Times on behalf of Mr Thompson and Ms Boaden. Thisreferred to the 22 August email and Mr Hardy’s response of 29 August, andindicated that the purpose of the email was:’... to remind you that the allegations... are of the most serious nature and highly
damaging to both the professional and personal reputations of Helen Boaden andMark Thompson. Neither Helen Boaden nor Mark Thompson had any involvement in
the decision not to broadcast the Newsnight story and therefore, the allegations are
untrue, wholly unsubstantiated and seriously defamatory and should not be published.
Accordingly, we reserve the right on behalf of our clients to issue defamation
proceedings arising out of the story you propose to publish if necessary.’ 94

54. Mr Thompson explained that, by this stage the Press Office were confident thatthey understood the issues clearly, and:‘....the best way of dissuading The Sunday Times Magazine from publishingallegations about Helen Boaden and me being involved in a conspiracy to suppress
the Newsnight investigation is to send a letter from an outside law firm, which I guess
carries the implication to a newspaper getting it that there is perhaps a greater chancethat an individual will sue you for defamation, than if it feels like it is simply a push backfrom the BBC.’ 95

55. Mr Thompson explained that, by the time he returned from holiday on 3
September for his final week and a half at the BBC (a large portion of which he
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was to spend travelling to BBC offices outside London), this plan had been
settled upon.96
56. While it is clear that Mr Thompson did approve the sending of the letter,97 when
I spoke to him he told me he had not been contacted by Mills & Reeve, and did
not recall being briefed by the BBC’s in-house lawyers, although it was possible
he was ‘very briefly’ spoken to about it.98

He told me that his assistant’s

recollection was that she printed the letter for him, but that he was ‘very clear’he ‘didn't read the detail of the letter’.99
7 September 2012 – BBC Notified of ITV Investigation
57. On 7 September 2012, the BBC received a three page letter (addressed to Mr
Entwistle who, it would appear, ITV had assumed was already in post as
Director-General) from the Producer/Director of the ITV Exposure documentary
setting out the allegations against Savile as they related to the BBC, and posing
a number of questions for response.100 The allegations included the following:‘Newsnight (2011)
In the programme we make reference to the 2011 Newsnight investigation into Savile’s
private life and Newsnight’s discovery that Savile had been the subject of a 2007
police investigation relating to historic cases of abuse. The programme will also referto the BBC’s subsequent decision not to broadcast this investigation.’

58. Mr Mylrea told me that the BBC’s response to this was driven by the BBC’s
legal team:‘.... what was happening was that the legal team were looking into a range of things
and they were -- it was when they were beginning to examine what there was onrecord, whether there was anything -- any evidence of any knowledge of Savile, andso my best recollection is this is when the legal team began to, sort of, if you like,principally lead on this project.’ 101

96
97
98
99
100
101

11/474-11/478
11/481; 12/173
11/479, lines 2-11
11/480-11/483
12/176-12/178
11/295, lines 1-9- 131 -

59. As part of this process, the BBC legal team spoke to Mr Rippon. Mr Mylrea told
me that the outcome or contents of these meetings was not shared with him orwith the communications team.102 As he explained:‘... we would check our lines with the legal team but we weren't receiving a stream of
documents from the legal team saying, you know, "Your line is wrong" or "This iswrong.
What was happening was our statements were being checked by the lawyers to see
whether they were correct or stayed -- or were in accordance with what they were
understanding, so we were relying upon them to tell us if anything was -- that we had
been saying was incorrect or was not right.’ 103

60. Mr Thompson commented to me that the absence of communication with him
about the press interest in the Savile story was ‘striking’.104 In his view, themost likely reason for this was that his colleagues ‘thought that this was a reallywell understood matter and they could adequately deal with it without drawing[him] into it’.105
11 September – Mr Mitchell meets with Mr Jones
61. The ITV letter did not come as a surprise to Mr Jones, who had been kept
broadly informed of developments by Mr Williams-Thomas.106
62. On 11 September, Mr Jones had what he described as a ‘very strange’
conversation with Mr Mitchell, instigated by Mr Mitchell.107 Mr Jones told methat he was unsure of the point of the conversation, even after it had finished.
In this meeting, Mr Mitchell told Mr Jones that there was no management
interference in the decision not to proceed with the Newsnight story, which was
a News decision.108 Mr Jones told me that this meeting was also the first time
he became aware that Mr Entwistle was aware of the story at the time.109

102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109

11/296
11/297, lines 1-6
11/484, lines 5-16
11/484, lines 11-16
11/183
11/188
11/184-11/185; 11/258A-11/258B}.
11/185-11/186.

- 132 -

63. In his interview, Mr Jones was asked whether he downloaded to Mr Mitchell the
points that he had made in the unsent ‘red flag’ email. Mr Jones said that hestarted to do so, but that Mr Mitchell shut him down by saying that heunderstood how strongly Mr Jones felt about the dangers of not running thestory.110
64. I asked Ms Boaden whether she considered asking for all of the underlying
material herself.

She said that she didn’t (and was under considerablepressure at the time), but with hindsight ‘bitterly regrets’ not doing so.111
Late September
65. The hardening of the BBC’s views surrounding what it was that Newsnight had
investigated remains evident at this time. On 20 September, the BBC Press
Office picked up a posting on the ‘Digital Spy’ website, which (correctly)
claimed that Newsnight had investigated a similar story to that contained in theupcoming ITV documentary. However, Ms Rosine of the Press Office took
exception to this in an email to other members of the Press Office:‘... they haven't got the bit about Newsnight right.... Are people happy if we go backand correct that? .... We weren't investigating similar claims we were investigating aparticular story relating to the CPS investigation which we could not substantiate andtherefore did not air.’ 112

66. After this was agreed, Ms Deller agreed to go back to them, with the existing
line:113“We were pursuing a particular angle related to the CPS/Police which we were unable
to substantiate and which was therefore not broadcast...”67. The ultimate result of this process was the BBC’s response to ITV, issued by
Mr Payne on 21 September. This contained the now familiar line that:‘... the story was dropped for editorial reasons. Newsnight was pursuing a particularangle relating to the CPS/Police which they were unable to substantiate and which
was therefore not broadcast...’ 114
110
111
112
113

11/187-11/188
11/038
12/179-12/180
12/179- 133 -

114

12/181- 134 -

PART SIX - THE BBC’S BLOG AND ITS AMENDMENT
CHAPTER I – THE CREATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BLOG

1.

In this chapter I consider the creation of the blog, and what was occurringinternally within the BBC at the start of October 2012.

1 October – Discussions among the Newsnight team2.

By 1 October, the ITV documentary broadcast was imminent, and there wason-going discussion among the Newsnight team as to whether Newsnightshould transmit a film dealing with the Savile allegations.

3.

It does not appear that there was any pressure by management not tobroadcast such a story, although Mr Mitchell told me that he told Mr Rippon thatany such story should have ‘something to add to the coverage that's alreadyout there’ – that is, that it ought not to be done solely for the purposes ofpreserving Newsnight’s reputation.1

4.

Mr Rippon seems to have been of the same point of view regarding whether
Newsnight should cover the allegations.2 When, on the morning of 1 October
Editor of the Day Neil Breakwell enquired as to whether there was any
Newsnight material on Savile which should be revisited,3 Mr Rippon stated that,in his view, it would be a ‘bit bizarre’ to ‘jump on ITVs wagon at this point’.4
This view prevailed, and Newsnight did not cover the story that night. Indeed,
Newsnight did not do so until 11 October, after the story had been dominating
headlines for over a week.

5.

Mr Rippon’s response led to some very terse exchanges, which showed thatthe difficult relationship and disagreements between Mr Rippon and his teamcontinued. After reading Mr Rippon’s email to Mr Breakwell, Mr Jones wrote to
Mr Rippon accusing him of attempting to rewrite history:

1
2
3
4

11/259, Lines 4-20
11/407 – 11/408
12/182
12/182- 135 -

‘Peter – I’m happy to accept the line that the Newsnight Savile paedophileinvestigation was dropped for Editorial Reasons – even if I strongly disagreed with thatdecision as I made clear. What disturbs me is any attempt to rewrite history. If there isan investigation into this – by the BBC Trust or HoC Culture and Media Committee for
instance – we have to be honest…You made the decision that we had enough to TX
once we had confirmation that the police had investigated him – on top of the victim xinterviews which we had already done…I don’t know what happened to change yourmind and I thought that was a bizarre decision but I accepted that you had decided todrop the story for Editorial Reasons because ultimately you are the Editor and it is up
to you to make those calls and decide which stories should be prioritised’. 5

6.

Mr Rippon drafted a response, but instead of sending it directly to Mr Jones heforwarded it to Mr Mitchell for his comment. Mr Rippon’s draft response refuted
the allegation that he was rewriting history:‘The truth is I was always conflicted about the editorial strengths of the story. As wereLiz and Shaminder who I discussed it with a [sic] length. As you will recall when you
first mentioned it I said I did not think it was a NN type story….in the final judgement
when we were told in terms... the old sick man allegation was not true and we could
not establish any clear institutional failure I decided on balance it was not editoriallystrong enough for us to run it’. 6

7.

Mr Mitchell suggested that Mr Rippon talk to, rather than email, Mr Jones as ‘emails seem more prone to leak’.7 While Mr Jones has denied he leaked any
emails,8 and Mr Mitchell has denied that he was specifically suggesting that Mr
Jones would himself leak any reply,9 it seems clear to me that (whatever Mr
Mitchell now says) this is precisely what Mr Mitchell was suggesting to Mr
Rippon.

This is consistent with the level of suspicion and mistrust whichappears to have by this stage become pervasive.
8.

Instead of sending this email, Mr Jones met with Mr Rippon and these matterswere discussed without, it appears, Mr Jones explicitly accusing Mr Rippon of
having been subject to external pressure to drop the story.10 While this does
not seem to be disputed, there is an important conflict between Mr Rippon’sand Mr Jones’s accounts of the content of their conversations that day. While
Mr Rippon cannot clearly recall the nature of the conversation, he is adamantthat Mr Jones had told him that [R1] was part of the Police investigation, and he

5
6
7
8
9
10

12/186 - 187
12/186
12/186
11/189 – 11/190
11/26011/191,Lines 18-24; 11/416 – 11/418- 136 -

says that, in a separate phone conversation that same day, Mr Jones explicitly
told him that ‘basically all the women had been involved in the police
investigation’.11 Mr Jones, while accepting that he told Mr Rippon that the Gary
Glitter claims were nothing which a police investigation could use (or words tothat effect) denies that he told Mr Rippon that all of the women had spoken to
the Police. Further, he says he told Mr Rippon the exact opposite.12
9.

The fact that not all the women had been in contact with the police was animportant fact which Mr Rippon had failed to grasp. Both Mr Jones and Ms
MacKean had consistently been clear that the significance of [R1] was not onlythat she provided on-camera testimony, but that she had not been spoken toduring the earlier police investigations. Mr Jones had pointed this out to Mr
Rippon in his email of 10 February 201213 and this fact was consistently thebasis for Mr Jones’s and Ms MacKean’s contention that Newsnight had moreevidence than the police had. In contrast, Mr Rippon’s emails suggested that
he had not always understood the detailed nature of the evidence that
Newsnight had found, for example, in his email of 9 February 2012.14

To theextent that Mr Rippon took away from this conversation with Mr Jones on 1
October the message that all the women had been in contact with the police,
I’m afraid that, not for the first time, Mr Rippon had got the wrong end of the
stick.
10. Separately, Mr Rippon asked Ms Gibbons for her thoughts on what hedescribed as ‘Saville [sic] gate’. In an email exchange, the two agreed that they
were ‘absolutely right’ not to run the story in 2011, and that the material trailed
by ITV did not appear to be much stronger than that gathered by Newsnight.15
1 October - Media Questioning
11. At the same time, media questioning regarding the Newsnight story wascontinuing. One strand of questioning related to the allegation that improper
11
12
13
14
15

11/421, Lines15-25
11/192
12/143
12/137
12/185- 137 -

pressure was applied to drop the story. In this regard, Helen Deller issued astatement in response to a request for comment from the Guardian:‘It is absolutely untrue that the Newsnight investigation was dropped for anything otherthan editorial reasons. We have been very clear from the start that the piece was notbroadcast because the story we were pursuing could not be substantiated. To say
otherwise is false and very damaging to the BBC and individuals. To allege that we arewithholding evidence from the police is also damaging and false. The notion thatinternal pressure was applied appears to be a malicious rumour’. 16

12. Ms Deller fielded further enquiries, from a number of outlets,17 including as towhether Mr Entwistle had any role in the decision not to pursue the story.18
13. Another strand of questioning which began to emerge at this time, initially fromjournalists at the Guardian and the Sun, related to whether the BBC had
withheld information from the Police. The number of people discussing the
response to this questioning illustrates the growing effort being devoted by the
BBC to the issue. It was discussed by Mr Rippon, Ms Deller and Mr Feeny inan email chain to which Mr Payne, Ms Boaden, Mr Mylrea, Mr Mitchell andValerie Nazareth, a BBC lawyer were copied.

The BBC Press Office’s

suggested response was to emphasise that there was no reason to believe thatthe information provided by [R1] was not already known to the Police.
14. Twice in this chain Mr Rippon erroneously confirmed the accuracy of this line,
and in particular that ‘We had nothing that she would not have told the policealready’.19

Mr Rippon says that he confirmed these statements as, at thatstage, he was under the impression that [R1] had been part of the Police
investigation.20 This was a major mistake that proved difficult to correct. It is
not easy to understand why Mr Rippon held this view.
15. Slightly later, Mr Rippon volunteered in a further email that ’[w]hat was alleged
about Glitter and Starr was a long way from anything the police would haveconsidered helpful.

16
17
18
19
20

With Starr it was not even abuse or with anyone

12/183; 12/190
12/20012/197
12/192 – 12/193
11/419, Lines15-16- 138 -

underage.’21 He cannot recall whether this was triggered by a thought from his
own memory, or by a conversation with Mr Jones.22
16. Quite separately, increasingly convoluted discussions were occurring among
the BBC Executive as to its corporate position.

For example, during theafternoon of 1 October Paul Mylrea, David Jordan, Julian Payne and Nadia
Banno debated a ‘slight tweak’ to its ‘Savile line’ to include a statement from
Rippon insisting that the decision was an editorial one and any claim thatinternal pressure was applied is a malicious rumour.23 Cooks and broth cometo mind. Once these ‘lines’ were agreed, they were circulated to Ms Cecil and
Mr Entwistle.24
17. The complete distrust of Mr Jones which I referred to above extended to theNews PR team.

Ms Deller and Mr Feeny were, by this stage, evidently

concerned about the continuing leaking of material to the media, of which they
assumed Mr Jones to be the source.25 The pair had taken the view that thisshould lead to disciplinary action against Mr Jones and even his dismissal. In
an email exchange later that night, after Ms Deller learned of Mr Jones’s family
connection to Duncroft,26 Ms Deller said to Mr Rippon, Mr Mitchell and Mr
Feeny: ‘No excuse. No more discussions with him’, suggesting ’a discreet
conversation with HR to establish options.’27

These comments illustrategraphically that battle lines were now being drawn up. On one side was Peter
Rippon’s view: he was being supported, effectively, by News Division
management, the Press Office and other senior individuals. On the other side
were Mr Jones and Ms MacKean with it being assumed that Mr Jones was
making use of contacts in the national media. This apparent ‘stand off’ madecalm and objective assessment of the facts more difficult.
2 October 2012 – A Briefing Note is prepared

21
22
23
24
25
26
27

12/196
11/420, Lines 2-6
12/188 – 12/189
12/199; 12/212 – 12/213
12/201
12/204 – 12/207
12/208- 139 -

The Briefing Note
18. The content of the blog had its genesis in a briefing note which Mr Rippon
prepared during the morning of 2 October at Mr Mitchell’s request.28

The

request was prompted by the continued press coverage and the fact that‘obviously various members of staff are putting their version out there’29. One
can readily infer that this was a reference (in particular) to Mr Jones and to Ms
MacKean.
19. Mr Rippon was asked by Mr Mitchell to outline ‘the decision making processfrom commission to decision not to proceed, as best as you can recall’30. The
briefing note was to be ‘for our use’.

While no timeframe was set for thecreation of this note, Mr Rippon was aware that it was a task which was to beprioritised and done as soon as possible,31 and he agreed to write it very
quickly – by lunchtime – apparently motivated by the fast moving nature ofpress coverage.32
20. Mr Mitchell says that the briefing note was intended for internal use initially,33 toserve as ‘a sort of tool in the toolkit should events develop, either externally orinternally’.34 However, it also seems to have been acknowledged that there
may be a need for at least a second ‘edited version’ of the account to bereleased externally,35 and Mr Rippon seemed keen to do this ‘as it seems to be
my reputation in the firing line’.36
21. There are a number of striking features which prompt comment at this stage.
The first is that it was clear from the outset that this briefing note could never be
relied upon as a full and complete account of events as it was prepared at
speed and on the basis of Mr Rippon’s recall alone. Mr Rippon was not asked
to go back to relevant source material.
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36

11/261, Lines 15-22
12/20912/209; 11/423, Lines 4-23
11/423, Lines 20-24
12/210; 11/262 – 11/263
11/261 – 11/263
11/263
12/211
12/211- 140 -

Unfortunately, the lack of properpreparation at this stage contributed to the later difficulties which arose inrelation to the blog which followed this briefing note.
22. Ms Boaden made the comment that the timeframe in which the note wasprepared was ‘not really short in news terms’.37 I understand what Ms Boaden
is saying, but I think this exercise required the time and the approachnecessary to get the briefing note right.

On the one hand, Mr Mitchellenvisaged a document which might be used as the basis for external comment
yet, on the other hand, he asked Mr Rippon to prepare it as best he could
recall. As I say above, these turned out to be errors of significance.
23. I doubt that the preparation of an accurate briefing note would have been an
onerous task. Mr Entwistle commented that he ‘wouldn't have expected Peter
Rippon to have to do much archaeology about an investigation of which he was
the executive producer’ as ‘I would have expected him to have, you know -- acollection of emails that related to his supervision of the investigation that would
really give him a pretty good guide to what had happened’.38
24. Mr Rippon says that he did go back to [R1] web memoir and to the final
statement from the CPS, and that he may have referred to the ROUGHSAVILE
2 script, but that otherwise this document was produced (as requested) from hismemory.39 Although Liz MacKean suggested these failures indicate that Mr
Rippon was ‘guilty of gross carelessness’,40 this is clearly not a matter Mr
Rippon can be entirely faulted for. Mr Mitchell’s request was not for him to
produce an account by reference to the source material, or to talk to others, orindeed to take any steps to refresh his memory. It was merely to set out thefacts, to the best of his recollection. This Mr Rippon did.
25. It is also striking, in circumstances where Mr Rippon was only being asked toprovide an account to the best of his recollection, that Mr Mitchell did notconsider it necessary to make the same request of Mr Jones or Ms MacKean.
It appears that this was a function of the chain of command within BBC News:
37
38
39
40

11/042, Lines 12-13
11/083, Lines 11-23
11/424 – 11/425
11/231, Lines 6-10

- 141 -

Mr Mitchell would go to Mr Rippon, and Mr Rippon would go to Mr Jones or Ms
MacKean if he considered it necessary.41 This point was debated between
Reed Smith and Mr Mitchell’s lawyers, Taylor Wessing, who explained that Mr
Mitchell’s view was that any checking of facts would have been Mr Rippon’s
own responsibility and it is, therefore, Mr Rippon who should have spoken to Mr
Jones and Ms MacKean about their concerns. When Mr Rippon was asked if
this was not a slightly bureaucratic way of doing it, and that it might have been
better, given the timeframe involved, to go directly to the others, Mr Mitchell
replied:‘... I want the view of the editor who made the decision. That's the most important
thing from my point of view. You might consider it bureaucratic, but that is the role ofthe editor’.42

26. This decision is particularly puzzling in light of Mr Mitchell’s conversation withMr Jones the previous month, from which Mr Mitchell was aware that Mr Jones
remained concerned about Mr Rippon’s decision making. It should have been
apparent from this that Mr Jones and/or Ms MacKean may well have had adifferent perspective on the relevant factual matters. In my view, Mr Mitchellshould have spoken to Mr Jones and/or Ms MacKean. He knew that there
were differences of opinion between them and Mr Rippon and, in thecircumstances, while the view of Mr Rippon, the editor who made the decision,
was extremely important, Mr Mitchell should have gone further.
27. Lest there be any doubt as to the impact of this failure, Ms MacKean told mequite emphatically that had she been consulted she ‘would never have agreed
that he should say what he said because it was so far from correct’.43 In myview, this was a serious omission.
28. Despite the time constraints, Mr Rippon did produce the promised briefing noteby lunchtime (having had a maximum of 3 hours in which to prepare it and, in

41
42
43

11/264,Lines 8-10
11/264,Lines 16-19
11/231,Lines 3-5- 142 -

practice, spent rather less time than this)44 and sent it to Mr Mitchell and Ms
Boaden in an email which also advised that he would begin work on a blog.45
29. The briefing note was, it is now clear, factually flawed in a number of criticalrespects.


It confused two significant witnesses who were interviewed on film. First,
Mr Rippon stated that: ‘the key witness was alleging that the police had
investigated it but had dropped it on the grounds he was too old’, whereas
the ‘key witness’ [R1] made no such allegation. In the next paragraph, hestated that ’We had no evidence that anyone from the Duncroft homeshould have known about it, and the key witness said in her original blog
she was “perfectly certain the BBC had no idea whatsoever of the goingson"’. While this is, in isolation, correct, this comes from a different witness
to that referred to in the previous paragraph.

The clear impression

conveyed is that these statements came from the same witness.
This is compounded in the following paragraph: ’We felt it best to interview
the key witness on tape to ensure we had her story’.46

Thus, there is the same confusion of the accounts of the two different
women which was present in Mr Rippon’s response (again prepared fromhis memory without reference to the source material) to Miles Goslett’s
original queries in 2011. From at least as early as December 2011 (see, forexample, his email of 21 December 201147), Mr Rippon had elided theaccounts of two separate individuals into one, thereby confusing theirstories and laying the foundations of the confusion to come. It is hard not
to conclude that Mr Rippon did not take enough care in learning the detailsof the evidence provided.

30. The inaccuracies in the briefing note itself were compounded in Mr Mitchell’semail in response, which thanked Mr Rippon for what would be ‘in effect the
44
45
46
47

11/426
12/214 – 12/215
10/095, Para 7
12/118- 143 -

detail behind our existing public position, namely that Newsnight had focusedon a v[ery] specific approach and when that didn't stack up dropped the projecton editorial merit’.48

Thus the briefing note was being used as evidence

supporting another flawed contention (not itself made in the statement), that is,that the focus had always been on the Police investigation.
From Briefing Note to Blog
31. As soon as Mr Rippon had finalised the briefing note, he turned to the
preparation of a blog. It is unclear precisely where the initiative for a blog camefrom. Mr Mitchell clearly envisaged a public statement being prepared49 but
the most likely source is the Press Office: Ms Boaden suggested that the idea
may have come from the Press Office, 50 Mr Rippon recalled a conversation
with Helen Deller on the morning of 2 October where the idea was floated51 andMr Mylrea said that the Press office was ‘pushing for something’ although hethought it was News who suggested a blog.52
32. It was clear from the start that Mr Rippon’s blog would be a selective account ofwhat had occurred. Mr Mitchell told Mr Rippon that the blog would ‘obviously
have to steer away from [s]ome of the elements of witness reliability but inessence can [follow] the same lines’.53 Mr Mitchell was not alone in this view.
The BBC Press Office, aware of how the ITV documentary had been trailed byreference to the veracity of the women was (as Ms Boaden put it) ‘anxious’ thatthe BBC not say that they did not believe some of the women.54
33. Mr Rippon had already made Mr Mitchell aware of the difficulty which would
arise in terms of putting his side of the story externally due to being unable to‘point to many of the weaknesses in the story’ which led to his decision not to
run it.55 Thus, from the outset it was clear that any external comment made by
Mr Rippon would not be a full and completely frank account of the decision
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55

12/216
12/211
11/04011/427, Lines 8-20
11/288, Lines 17-21
12/216
11/039, Lines 22-25
12/210- 144 -

making process, but instead a limited and circumspect one. Indeed, Mr Rippon
has explained that not only was he reluctant to question the witnesses’
reliability, but he was also reluctant to criticise his team for the way theinvestigation was conducted:‘I felt slightly hamstrung when I was writing the blog about how fair it was to someone
like [R1] for me to say -- you know, for me to appear to be kind of criticising her or
doubting her, particularly in the context of the hundreds of other people I think at thispoint that were – that were coming out. And I didn't think it was -- so yes, I did feelslightly hamstrung by the extent to which I wanted to make that explicit in the blog.
And also some of the issues I had about the way the testimony had been collected, I
didn't want to get into that either because it would have looked like I was criticising myteam.’ 56

34. Mr Mylrea said that he was aware that there might be issues that might not bein the blog because of ’confidentiality’ and other concerns.57 I comment below
on the role and managerial oversight of the blog. At this stage I merely pointout that, from the outset, both the briefing note and the blog were flawed
documents. The instructions given by Mr Mitchell to Mr Rippon meant that thebriefing note was most unlikely to be sufficiently reliable to meet the purposethat Mr Mitchell quickly assigned to it. A number of people then compounded
the error by acquiescing in the production of a blog which was not a full andcompletely frank account of the decision-making process. Yet further errors
followed, which I deal with below.
35. Mr Rippon prepared a draft of the blog at considerable speed (approximately
two hours), and circulated this to Mr Mitchell, Ms Boaden, Mr Feeny and Mr
Mylrea (copied to Ms Deller) early in the afternoon of 2 October.58 From thisstage, both Corporate and News PR became involved in the blog’s production,
and a series of emails suggesting ‘tweaks’ were exchanged, culminating in adecision to publish a final version later in that afternoon.59

In one of the‘tweaking’ emails, Mr Mylrea relayed a suggested change from Andrew
Scadding, the BBC’s Head of Corporate and Public Affairs, in an email which
was copied to Jessica Cecil, so it is evident that Mr Entwistle’s office was also
involved.
56
57
58
59

11/422, Lines 2-14
11/292, Lines 13-19
12/219 – 12/220
12/222 – 12/226- 145 -

36. In light of the sensitivity around citing disbelief of the witnesses, it was decided,
as Ms Boaden put it: to use the ‘rather measly and mealy mouthed, "Editorial
reasons" which of course tells you nothing’.60 Mr Mitchell defended this on thebasis that Mr Rippon was still able to get across what he considered the key
point: that Mr Rippon ‘had made the decision for himself as a good and strong
editor’.61 Ms Boaden, however, admitted that she was ‘very uncomfortable...
with the idea of ’editorial reasons’, because it was a ‘euphemism’.62
37. While Mr Entwistle says he was unaware of this aspect of the blog’s
preparation, he commented that ‘it does seem to me ... he can still have written
a blog in which everything was true, which was not a blog in which he had
written everything...’63 He acknowledged however, that if a view that [R1]evidence was unreliable was the real reason that the story was not run, thenthe omission rendered the blog inaccurate.64
38. The text of the blog which was published at 5.05pm on the evening of 2
October was as follows:‘There has been a lot written about why I took the decision not to run a story into
allegations of sex abuse by the former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile. It has beensuggested I was ordered to do it by my bosses as part of a BBC cover-up. It has also
been suggested that we deliberately withheld information from the police. Both these
allegations are totally untrue and despite consistent strong denials keep getting
repeated. I felt it would be useful to share more about what really happened.
The BBC has the highest editorial standards and with any story an editor has to weighmany things before putting something to air. BBC editors have a lot of power andresponsibility and I have never, in the many years I have done this job, ever been told
by one of my superiors not to do a story against my will. I would not still be working
here if they had.
Why did I pursue this story about Jimmy Savile and why did I drop it?
I decided we should pursue the story because of the nature of the allegations andbecause the key witness told us the police had investigated the claims but the case
had been dropped on the grounds he was too old. This made the public interest casefrom a Newsnight point of view potentially strong. If we could establish some sort ofinstitutional failure we would have a much stronger story.
60
61
62
63
64

11/041
11/265, Lines 7-14
11/048, Lines 12-23
11/084, Lines 18-25
11/091 – 11/092- 146 -

Some of the factors on the other side were: Newsnight is not normally interested incelebrity expose. Savile was unable to defend himself. What was the public interest
served by reporting it given he is dead? The nature of the allegations and the level of
proof required. The fact the incidents were 40 years ago.
We had no evidence that anyone from the Duncroft home could or should have known
about the allegations. We had no evidence against the BBC. In her original statement
our key witness said she was "perfectly certain the BBC had no idea whatsoever of thegoings on". However, I felt if we could prove the police or the CPS had let the women
down in some way we should go ahead.
We did establish the police had investigated the allegations in 2007. However, as thepolice would be obliged to investigate I wanted to check how they would respond to
the allegation that it was not pursued because Jimmy Savile was too old. The CPS told
us:
"The CPS reviewing lawyer advised the police that no further action should be taken
due to lack of evidence." The additional guidance noted stated. "As this is the case, itwould not be correct to say that his age and frailty was the reason for no further action
being taken."This statement specifically denied the allegation that the investigation was dropped
because of his age. I felt it was significant the guidance was included and we had notestablished any institutional failure and I judged it weakened the story from a
Newsnight perspective. I took the decision not to publish. There were some of myteam who disagreed strongly with my judgement, and others who agreed equallystrongly.
However, those who disagreed accepted my decision. There were no rows of any kindas has been reported.
Did we withhold evidence from the police? No. We are confident that all the women we
spoke to had contacted the police independently already. We also had no newevidence against any other person that would have helped the police.
Did my bosses order me to do anything? No. I did discuss it with my bosses in News in
the same way I do any contentious story we are working on. I was told in the strongest
terms that I must be guided by editorial considerations only and that I must not let any
wider considerations about the BBC affect my judgement.
The fact that the BBC has the capacity to do this may feel odd to other organisations
but it is fundamental to the trust we share with our audience.’

39. Within an hour of the blog being published, Jeremy Paxman, a senior presenter
on Newsnight, emailed Mr Rippon to say that the blog ‘doesn’t answer all of theaccusations laid against us’.65 He continued: ’I have to say, I think we make aproblem for ourselves by running away from this story.

65

12/228- 147 -

1.

It’s everywhere.

2.

It raises questions about the way in which the claims of child abuse

victims are treated.
3.

It raises serious questions about journalistic ethics – different

burdens of proof for the living and the dead – which are slap-bang in our
terrain.
4.

We have a locus on the story, which needs explaining if we’re goingto lay the “patsy” accusation.
5.

We have our own journalism.

Even though we’d be very late starting on it, can I ask you to reconsider?’40. This was followed by further emails between Mr Paxman and Mr Rippon inwhich Mr Rippon agreed ’we are in an awkward position’66 but resisted the ideaof running the story on Newsnight, saying it would amount to ’special pleading’.
Mr Paxman said that there were questions to be answered and added ’if we
don’t tackle it, I fear it looks like we’re hiding’.67 Mr Rippon replied that notcovering the story ‘is the least worst option’. Mr Paxman continued the email
exchange saying ‘just for the record, I think it is very unfair (and sadly not at all
untypical) that the BBC has dumped all this on one individual’. 68
41. The email exchange continued with Mr Paxman suggesting that the decision
not to run the Savile investigation ‘must have been a corporate decision(whatever your blog says)’,69 to which Mr Rippon replied:‘It wasn’t corporate honestly. I guess I may be guilty of self-censorship. In the end I
just felt what we had … Forty year old contestable claims about a dead guy was not a
NN story and not worth the fuss’.70

66
67
68
69
70

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12/237- 148 -

The Role of the Blog
42. Mr Rippon’s blog was published on the BBC’s Editors’ Blog site: ‘The Editors’.
There is an evident tension between the journalistic and public relations
aspects of this site, which was described by Mr Mitchell (and to similar effect by
Ms Boaden) as one ’where editors from across BBC News explain stories andshare their dilemmas and other issues with the public’.71
43. Mr Rippon viewed the blog as an opportunity for him, as Editor, to communicate
with his audience.

He told me that, as a result of the ITV Exposure

documentary which would transmit the following day, and the fact there had
been press coverage of his decision, he ‘felt that the Newsnight viewers would
probably appreciate an account from me as to why, when they are watching..
Exposure.. wondering why I hadn’t run the piece..- that they would deserve an
explanation of that. That was the spirit in which I agreed to write it’.72
44. Ms Boaden characterised posts on the BBC’s Editors’ Blog site as forming partof the BBC’s journalism, and agreed that, as such, the site’s content must meet
usual editorial standards.73 However, it is apparent that there was at the very
least a muddling of roles, as blog posts are created in liaison with the BBC
News Press Office.74 Mr Entwistle defended the Press Office’s involvement,
although suggested it ought to be limited:‘Because the blog is seen as a public facing exercise in explaining how the BBC does
what it does, then the press office involvement, I think, is appropriate in terms of, youknow, consistency and making sure that the phraseology is as good as it could be andthat kind of thing.
...
I would never want the press office to get involved in journalism, under any
circumstances. I mean, when the journalism was stable and you were selling thejournalism, either to your audience or the outside world, sure, but it's not like getting
the marketing department involved in shaping a piece of stuff that you are marketing, it
is a different thing’. 75

45. Mr Entwistle also acknowledged the blurred role played by the blog:

71
72
73
74
75

10/090,Para 22;11/047, Lines 6-8
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‘I think there is a sense in which it isn't journalism because it is about the workings ofthe BBC. So, in other words, it is reflexive. Unusually – we don't spend a lot of timetalking about what we do… . Arguably, they don't do enough, and the editors' blog
was a real attempt when it was brought in to make the whole process moretransparent and give people more insight into how decisions were arrived at but I think
the answer is it must have all the same standards of accuracy and impartiality and all
the other BBC values, but it is not journalism in quite the same way…’. 76

46. For his part, Mr Mylrea considered that the role played by the Press Office in its
creation was superficial and advisory only:‘An editor's blog is an editorial product and therefore there is no right -- I have no rightto sign it off or to -- or to challenge it. I can make stylistic suggestions but they can be
refused. It is therefore a product which is supposed to have the same principles as the
BBC News journalism’. 77

47. It seems to me that the BBC is not clear in its own mind whether a blog is, or isnot, part of the BBC’s journalism and, as such, subject to usual editorial
standards. If the blog was subject to editorial standards, it clearly breached anumber of these. Information about relevant editorial standards is in Part One
but it seems clear that, at the least, the following standards may have beenbreached:

The obligation in clause 44 of the Framework Agreement on the BBC to “doall it can to ensure that controversial subjects are treated with due
accuracy…”. The commitment set out at paragraph 1.2.1 of the editorial
values on the part of the BBC “to achieving the high standards of due
accuracy” as well as similar obligations at paragraphs 1.2.2 and 3.2.1.;

The obligation at paragraph 3.4.2 to “check and verify information, facts
and documents, where required to achieve due accuracy.”Managerial Oversight of the Blog
48. The preparation of the blog can only be described as chaotic.

I comment

above on the flaws in the process which led to the blog. It is up to the BBC how
it chooses to make public statements but whatever that method is, preparationof those statements should surely be considerably better organised and76
77

11/090, Lines 11-23
11/291, Lines 19-24- 150 -

controlled than happened with the Savile blog. That it was not possible toestablish with certainty where the idea for a blog came from is indicative of alack of control in the blog process. The impression given is of no particular
individual being in control of and responsible for that process who was charged
with ensuring that the document produced was precise and accurate.

I

consider that what can only be described as a rather chaotic approach
unfortunately continued after the blog was published. I deal with this below.
49. Although it is clear that this blog was signed off, there also appears to be some
dispute – or at the very least confusion – as to extent to which blogs are subject
to oversight or ‘sign off’ by management,
Mr Rippon complained that:‘... since Hutton, there is a very strict compliance process around anything which is
published by editors in the BBC's name. So anything that I write -- any blog that I write
has to be signed off by my line manager and agreed by the press department … So
I'm not allowed to publish anything -- I'm allowed to do anything -- ironically I'm allowed
to do anything on my programme between 10.30 and 11.15 that I like and be
responsible for it, but I'm not allowed to publish anything written in the form of a blog
without it being signed off corporately’. 78

50. By contrast, the managers up the chain from Mr Rippon had a different view.
Mr Mitchell suggested that, despite their important role, editors’ blogs are ‘notalways overseen or checked by management’.

Both he and Ms Boaden

insisted that these are the responsibility of the editors themselves, and that thedetailed supervision of such blogs do not lie within their responsibilities.79 Mr
Entwistle suggested there was an element of truth to this as:‘... an editor -- a BBC News editor at an editor grade, senior manager 2, is allowed to
go to air with their own blog without referring it upwards, because they are in that levelof the organisation where they are entitled to take responsibility for their output. They
can, in fact, do a blog without getting it signed off’.

But that anyone further down the chain:‘Would have to get an approval. That was the whole idea of the editors' blog. It was
an attempt to join a world of self-publication and pitch it at a level where people were78
79

11/409, Lines 3-13
10/090, Para 22; 10/007, Para 40- 151 -

considered senior and experienced enough to make judgements go about going to air
unsupervised’. 80

51. It does not appear that the BBC has a formal policy on whether editorial blogs
need to be overseen. However, Mr Rippon suggested that, post-Hutton, suchoversight did occur in practice, and further complained that the ‘compliance’
requirements of this resulted in him and other editors writing blogs lessfrequently than they had previously done.81 Further, Mr Entwistle told me in his
interview that, while his testimony to the Culture and Media Select Committee
may have suggested otherwise, his sense was that the blog was something Mr
Mitchell ‘would have had sight of and approval of’,82 and he would also haveexpected the Press Office to be involved with ‘the business of fine-tuning thelanguage for publication’.83
52. Mr Mitchell said that his oversight was limited to ensuring that the blog posting
did not stray into sensitive matters regarding the witnesses.84 He said that hewas satisfied that it dealt effectively with ‘the inaccurate allegations in the press
about the reasons for dropping the investigation’.85

Ms Boaden was morecircumspect in her statement, saying simply that she ‘thought that none of it
appeared to contradict what she had been told previously’.86
53. Mr Mitchell appeared to want to play down his role and any responsibility for theblog. In response to a question whether he and Helen Boaden had ’gone
through’ the blog ’really rather carefully’, he replied that “it was gone through,certainly”. He told me that he saw the blog as Mr Rippon’s ’opportunity to makehis position clear’.87 Mr Mitchell clearly signed off on the blog. He signalled his
agreement with the final blog in an email sent at 4.18pm that afternoon88.
When Mr Entwistle was shown this email in his interview, he thought that thiswas a managerial sign off.89 Mr Entwistle himself said that he glanced at the
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89

11/088 – 11/089
11/410 – 11/411
11/087, Lines 1-6
11/087, Lines 10-15
11/266 – 11/267
10/090, Para 23
10/007, Para 40
11/266,Lines 8-11 & Lines 16-23
12/222
11/088,Lines 3-5- 152 -

blog on Mr Mylrea’s computer, from which he gathered that its function was torebut allegations that Mr Rippon had been subject to improper pressure. 90 Ms
Boaden’s lawyers, in correspondence with Reed Smith, asserted that Ms
Boaden did not sign off on the blog. However, at 4.53pm she sent a text
message to Mr Rippon which said ‘Excellent blog. You are a terrific writer x’. 91
54. I have concluded that there were significant failings in the managerial oversightof Mr Rippon’s blog.
55. First, a relatively casual briefing note prepared, at the request of Mr Mitchell, forinternal purposes, was quickly repackaged for presentation to the public. As
Ms Boaden put it, there was a shift from ’What do you remember Peter? To
being a blog without anybody noticing’.92
56. Secondly, the error was compounded by Mr Mitchell in not only immediately
categorising the briefing note as ’the detail behind our existing public position’93
but also in causing the blog, from the outset, to omit a significant and central
part of the story when he instructed Mr Rippon ’to steer away from some of theelements of witness reliability’.94 Therefore, to the extent Mr Mitchell had amanagement role in ensuring the accuracy of the statement, all that wasachieved was ensuring that a significant and central part of the story wasomitted.
57. This lack of clear leadership in relation to the blog contributed to the lack ofclarity in the document and in respect of the blog’s purpose. As with the earlier
briefing note, no attempt was made to check the relevant facts with anybody
other than Mr Rippon and, strangely, while Mr Mitchell agreed that the blog was
not an ordinary blog post, he did not accept that it was viewed as an important
public statement of the BBC’s position.95 He told me that he viewed it – rather
as Mr Rippon did – as an opportunity for Mr Rippon to make his personal
position clear. While I have sympathy with Mr Rippon having that view, I find it
90
91
92
93
94
95

11/093 – 11/094
12/227
11/043
12/216
12/216
11/266- 153 -

difficult to understand how Mr Mitchell can have held that view. A media storm
was gathering, there was significant interest in the blog within the BBC and theblog was a public statement. In my view, the blog was clearly the BBC’s publicstatement on a challenging issue and its preparation required proper rigour andattention to detail. When clear leadership was required, it was not provided.
The Corporate Response
58. In parallel to the development of the blog, BBC Corporate set about developing
their own response to the Savile revelations. On the afternoon of 2 October, Mr
Mylrea, Mr Jordan, Mr Entwistle and BBC Lawyers began to develop a
response to allegations that offending took place on BBC premises.
59. One of Mr Mylrea’s original proposed lines was that ‘These were criminal
actions which are the responsibility of the police’,96 and later in the afternoon,
Mr Entwistle emailed around a revised line (‘[a]fter much consideration andconsultation’ with Sarah Jones, the BBC’s head of legal, although not, it
appears, with Mr Rippon), including the more accurate statement that these are‘allegations of a serious criminal nature which only the police have the proper
powers to investigate’.97
60. Mr Entwistle says that he considered there was a prospect of a criminal
investigation into Savile’s accomplices as a consequence of discussions he had
had with Police,98 although by this time, Mr Entwistle says he had sought andreceived an assurance from Ms Boaden that ‘Everything that Newsnight have,the police have already got’.

I consider in Part Three the question of theprovision of documentation produced by investigations that are not taken
forward to the police. 99
61. The notion that the allegations were properly matters for the Police is in evident
contradiction to Mr Rippon’s position that Newsnight did not have any material

96
97
98
99

12/218
12/221
11/086, Lines 5-24
11/085 – 11/086- 154 -

which would be of interest to the Police. Mr Rippon and Ms Boaden were
unaware that this line was being developed.100
62. The backdrop to the corporate statements was a growing realisation by Mr
Entwistle that he did not have an accurate picture of what had been (or ought tohave been) communicated to the Police. As Mr Entwistle put it:‘I became really worried and preoccupied with whether or not an accurate
understanding of what they had got on Newsnight was being communicated to thepolice. I made that attempt on the 2nd, to be reassured that the police had got
everything.
I then asked Nadia Banno and the BBC Legal team to engage really forensically with
Newsnight because I just wasn't happy -- I wasn't convinced that they had made aproper assessment of what the police ought to have and what they hadn't’. 101

100
101

11/082, Lines 6-16; 11/429, Lines 13-17
11/082, Lines 6-16

- 155 -

CHAPTER II
THE BLOG REMAINS UP
The Blog as Sole Source of Information
63. The blog, once published, was relied upon by the BBC Corporate Press Office
as a ‘thorough picture of what had happened on the programme’.102 Mr Mylrea
told me that while he understood that the blog may have omitted certain
sensitive matters, he was entirely unaware of the possible limitations on its
accuracy due to the circumstances under which it was prepared. As he put it‘What I was provided with was a blog by the editor. We were given the blog
with all normal assurances that this was the account that we could follow’.103
He added that he would not have based any comments on statements which hebelieved to be ‘inaccurate, misleading or partial’.104
64. In his interview, Mr Mylrea told me of a conversation with Ms Boaden which herecalls occurring on or around 3 October, in which he asked if it would bepossible to have more detail about the editorial decision making process, only
to be told that he could not ask that question and that he did not understandindependent journalism.105

While this comment appears to have irritated Mr

Mylrea, who clearly defended his position, this chimes with Ms Boaden’scomment to me that there were a number of recent arrivals at a corporate levelin the BBC who ‘do not get’ the separation between BBC News and BBC
Corporate.106
65. Mr Mylrea explained to me that what he wanted was for Mr Rippon to be put up
for interview so that he could be ‘challenged on points’ and provide a fuller
explanation where necessary.107 However, this did not occur, and Mr Mylrea

102
103
104
105
106
107

11/292, Lines 10-11
11/290 – 11/291
11/292, Lines 5-7
11/293 – 11/294
11/047 – 11/048
11/289, Lines 8-10; 11/294, Lines 16-19- 156 -

told me that he was unaware of any real doubt as to the accuracy of the blog
until 19 October.108
66. Inevitably, the errors in Mr Rippon’s blog began to feed into the BBC’s
responses to media requests almost immediately. This is evident from an email
discussion on the evening of 2 October between Mr Mitchell, Ms Deller and Mr
Feeny regarding the development of a ‘line’ to be used regarding requests forunbroadcast material. In the course of this discussion, Mr Mitchell incorrectly
said that:‘The new rape allegation that has sparked the BBC offer to cooperate with the Met
only emerged today and isn't one that Newsnight were aware of when they were
pursuing the Savile story. Finally, of course, we have already said that the police were
aware of the allegations by the women that Newsnight talked to, so would have beenable to talk to those women themselves’. 109

Identification of Flaws
67. The inaccuracies in the blog did not go unnoticed for long. In the early morningof 3 October, Ms MacKean emailed Mr Jones, bluntly highlighting one suchflaw:
‘Just noticed, comment that “we are confident that all the women we had spoken to
had gone to the police” utter bollocks – one of our contentions was we had more thanthe police and their ‘investigation’ was suspect…’. 110

68. Ms MacKean followed this with an email later that morning to Mr Rippon and Mr
Mitchell, copied to Mr Jones:‘The penultimate paragraph is misleading. It states that “we” are confident the women
we’d spoken to had contacted the police already and so we had no new information.
This is wrong. One of the reasons Meirion and I argued for the film not to be set aside
was that the police had not in fact contacted our interviewee, raising questions about
the thoroughness and efficacy of their investigation. She also told us about Gary Glitterand the comedian. The Gary Glitter element was corroborated by another woman we
spoke to … Now that our main interviewee has spoken to ITN there seems to be ahigh chance any inaccuracies will be shown up’. 111

108
109
110
111

11/304 – 11/306
12/232
12/233
12/235- 157 -

69. In her interview, Ms MacKean characterised the act of copying this email to Mr
Mitchell as going ‘over Peter’s head’, something she considered necessary as
the blog was ‘putting forward a totally misleading account, which to me built on
the earlier misleading statements from the press office’.112 This was a rareexample of such a step being taken.
70. Mr Rippon replied five minutes later:‘This is not what Meirion told me on Monday ... He said we were confident all thewomen had been spoken to by the police. He also said the Glitter claims were nothinga police investigation could use and the other allegations against the other person
were not serious anyway’. 113

71. As noted above, Mr Rippon maintains that this was what he was told by Mr
Jones on 1 October, and that it was only after receiving Ms MacKean’s 3
October email that Mr Jones changed his account.114 Mr Jones, however, saysthat he told Mr Rippon the exact opposite.115
72. Mr Mitchell, who was out of London that day, intervened at this stage,
instructing Mr Rippon and Ms MacKean to sort it out:‘...can you agree on the crucial point that was being used internally and externally thatyou had no evidence that the police didn't already have. Clearly if that is not the caseit has serious implications both for the women making the allegations, the police“investigation” and yourselves, as liz also highlights we need to be sure that Peter's
version of [sic] events is also accurate. If despite what was being said yesterday you
now all say that we have been sitting on evidence for several months that the police
are unaware of this will need to be fed into the centre where they are trying to defend
the bbc’ reputation’. 116

73. While Mr Rippon replied within half an hour saying that after discussing with Mr
Jones, they agreed ‘on the fundamental point that we do not have anything thatwould help a police investigation’,117 Mr Jones sent a more fulsome reply someminutes later, from which it would have been clear that there were significant
questions about what had been withheld from the Police:

112
113
114
115
116
117

11/232
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11/436 – 11/437
11/192
12/240; 11/268
12/241- 158 -

‘Already talked to Peter about this – it is inaccurate – our on-camera interviewee for
instance…had never talked to police … We should probably correct it but if we don’t
we should at least tell the press office’. 118

74. In this email, Mr Jones said that he believed that another woman had told thepolice about Gary Glitter,119 and in another email less than half an hour later,
Mr Jones referred to his earlier email and said that, while Mr Rippon was wrong
to say that all witnesses spoke to the Police, he was right to say that ‘we did not
believe that we were withholding anything from the police that could result in aprosecution of anyone who is alive’.120 This view is reflected by Mr Rippon in afurther email later that day.121
75. Following these emails there could be little doubt that there was serious cause
for concern about both the accuracy of the blog, and the relationship between
Mr Rippon, Mr Jones and Ms MacKean; both points that Mr Mitchell accepts.122
However, at the time Mr Mitchell simply replied to Mr Rippon’s final email bysaying ‘OK’.123 In his statement, Mr Mitchell says that from this point and forthe rest of the week he was of the view that the blog had addressed the main
issue, and that any dispute as to details was being handled by the Press
Office.124
76. For his part, Mr Rippon accepts that he ought also to have corrected the blog at
this stage,125 but explains that he did not do so as he felt the ‘substantive point’
about the absence of any evidence of value to the police still stood.126
The Glitter Allegations
77. The Glitter allegations achieved prominence later that day, after the ITVlunchtime news reported that [R1] told Newsnight that she saw another minor
having sex with Glitter. In response to an enquiry from Mr Mitchell about the

118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126

12/242
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12/243
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accuracy of this report, Mr Rippon told him that ‘She could not identify thevictim, we could not corroborate it’ and that ‘[w]e did not feel this was anything‘evidential’ that may have helped a police inquiry’, later adding that ‘off therecord I was really uncomfortable about whether we could believe her or not’.
127

These emails from Mr Rippon were forwarded by Mr Mitchell to Mr Feeny,

who in turn forwarded them on to Helen Deller.128
78. The BBC News Communications team was working up a response to the Glitter
allegations throughout the afternoon. Initially, this was to deal with questions
about why the accusation was not broadcast, with the focus of the proposedline being the absence of an identifiable victim, although this was later modified
to emphasise that the only criterion was that the standard of proof was notreached.129 Mr Rippon told me in his interview that he was unsure if he wasinvolved in the development of this line, although he says he ‘may well have letthat go’ had he been shown it.130
79. The response was broadened to address why the Glitter allegation was notbrought to the attention of the Police following a question from the Daily Mail.131
Mr Rippon suggested a stronger line than that proposed by the Press Office in
response to this allegation. Indeed, he went further than he did in his response
to Mr Mitchell earlier in the day, and contended that not only was Newsnight
unable to identify or trace the alleged victim, they ‘believed the allegation... wasalready known to the police’.132 Mr Rippon explained that this was based onwhat he had been told by Mr Jones.133 This was incorporated into the response
which was eventually issued to the Daily Mail (and which was agreed by Mr
Rippon).134
Media Interviews

127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134

12/253; 12-261
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80. Mr Rippon was reluctant to be interviewed about his decision but Mr Mylrea, Mr
Entwistle and Ms Cecil were keen that he should be.135 Mr Rippon explainedthat his reluctance stemmed from his suspicion that he may be being hung out
to dry, and a corresponding desire for other executives ‘to engage on thestory’.136
81. After Mr Rippon’s refusal, the task of defending the BBC’s position publicly fell
to Mr Jordan. Mr Jordan was interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s Media Show on 3
October, and then a series of interviews the following day.137
82. During the course of the Media Show interview on 3 October, Mr Jordan stated,
incorrectly, that the Newsnight investigation:‘… never started out as an investigation into Jimmy Savile himself. It started out as aninvestigation into whether the Surrey Police had dropped allegations’.

83. MrJordancould

misapprehension,

138

not

remember

how

he

came

to

be

under

this

but he was swiftly corrected, as, after this interview, Mr

Rippon emailed him to clarify that, while the CPS angle was important (andwhat the story ‘ultimately fell on’), in truth it was a combination of reasons
related to the credibility of the witnesses which led to his decision not to run thestory.139

Mr Rippon also said that he made ‘repeated efforts to correct

inaccuracies that were being repeated in interviews’.140
84. Mr Jordan told me that he had read the blog in preparation for the interview,141
but that he had no involvement in the creation of the blog, nor did he know
anything about the work which preceded it.142
85. After hearing Mr Jordan’s interview on the Today programme, Mr Jones
arranged to meet with him. Mr Jordan told me that he clearly understood this

135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142

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11/204, Lines 21-22
11/202- 161 -

meeting was to be, at Mr Jones’s request, confidential.143 Mr Jones also
provided his account of the investigation and, following the meeting, emailed Mr
Jordan a copy of the Savile script.144 Mr Jordan said he asked Mr Jones at theconclusion of the meeting if he would like him to take any further action, andwas told no. The fact that this script had been provided by Mr Jones to Mr
Jordan was later revealed by Private Eye and prompted a number of angry
emails from Mr Jordan to Mr Jones.145 Although Mr Jones denied this, Mr
Jordan appears to be convinced that, despite the fact that the meeting between
him and Mr Jones was agreed to be confidential, Mr Jones leaked the fact that
he had provided the script to Mr Jordan to Private Eye. 146

Following his

second interview with me, Mr Jones, through his lawyers, obtained letters fromthree journalists, supporting his denials of leaking. One of these was Francis
Wheen, the journalist responsible for the Private Eye piece. 147
86. When giving evidence, Mr Jones was pressed about suggestions that he had
leaked or given stories about the Newsnight investigation to newspapers,
including any information used by Private Eye. Mr Jones very firmly denied
responsibility and said that it had not been until late October 2012, when hewas contacted by several journalists, that he had spoken to the press and then
only to correct what he regarded as unfair and untrue stories about him148 .
87. It is clear, however, that there was a very wide belief in the BBC at a number oflevels that Mr Jones was indeed the source, either directly or indirectly, of anumber of stories in several newspapers and publications about the Newsnight
investigation.
4 October – A Proposed Statement from Mr Entwistle
88. On the morning of 4 October, after the broadcast of ITV’s ’Exposure’
documentary about Savile, it was suggested that a personal statement from Mr
Entwistle was necessary, and Mr Entwistle circulated a draft for discussion.
143
144
145
146
147
148

11/205 – 11/206
10/058, Para 23.3; 12/266
12/328 – 12/329
11/05912/34011/194, Lines 21 and 25- 162 -

While this did not result in a public statement being issued, this draft formed thebasis for a staff email which was sent the following day, a matter I return tobelow.
89. Ms Boaden recalls attending a meeting in Mr Entwistle’s office around this timewith Mr Entwistle, Ms Cecil and Mr Mylrea present. Ms Boaden told me that, by
this stage, Mr Entwistle’s working assumption (having seen the ITV
programme) was that Mr Rippon had made a bad editorial judgment and, in thismeeting, Ms Boaden recalls Mr Entwistle as saying the following:‘I'm going to do a public statement and I have decided that I need to protect the BBC
and BBC News within it, and I'm going to do a statement that makes it impossible forPeter not to resign’. 149

90. Ms Boaden says Mr Entwistle pulled back from this when it was pointed out that
this was an ethically dubious thing to do, and that it was unlikely in any event toprompt Mr Rippon to resign.150 While Mr Entwistle could not remember this
aspect of the discussion, he accepted Ms Boaden’s description as ‘a clear
enough account of the meeting’, and said that he ‘must have been considering
using the statement for that purpose’.151 Similarly, Mr Mylrea had a vague
recollection of such a discussion but could not could not remember it clearly,152
although he did tell me that at some stage he told Mr Entwistle that eventually
the point would come where people would be required to (to use his term) ‘take
responsibility’, and that Mr Entwistle would need to decide ‘where theresponsibility lies’.153

He also appears to have accepted that this was Mr

Entwistle’s view at the time.154
91. In the same meeting, Ms Boaden says she offered to take public responsibility
for the decision not to proceed with the story, and to resign if necessary, butthat Mr Entwistle refused to accept her resignation.155 Mr Mylrea recalls Ms
Boaden’s offer, and says that he advised against it on the basis that no
149
150
151
152
153
154
155

11/051, Lines 12-15
11/051 – 11/052
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11/053 – 11/056- 163 -

wrongdoing had been proved, and that her departure would make BBC News
‘unmanageable’.156 Mr Entwistle does not recall Ms Boaden’s offer, and was ofthe view that he would have remembered had it been discussed as a serious
possibility.157
92. The suggestion that Mr Entwistle deliver a public statement which made it
impossible for Mr Rippon not to resign was, in my view, inappropriate. Mr
Entwistle was right to pull back in the face of Ms Boaden’s objections.

It

appears that a notion that a ‘head needs to roll’ in order to bring closure to an
episode such as this may have been drawn from the BBC’s organisational
culture. As Mr Entwistle noted:‘The BBC very quickly gets itself in, at times like this, into those places where aresignation or sacking for whatever it might be is the way to solve a situation like this’.
158

Discussions within BBC News about the Blog
93. The concerns about the blog had not escaped Mr Rippon, who appears to havecontemplated writing a further blog at this stage, but decided to defer for a day
or two as the timing did not feel right.159
94. On 5 October, after Mr Entwistle expressed a personal interest in how media
responses were being handled, Ms Deller sent a draft timeline to Mr Rippon
and Mr Mitchell for their review, with the intent that it then be ‘selectively usedin briefing’.160 The timeline suggested by Ms Deller, after discussion with Mr
Rippon, was the following:


156
157
158
159
160

‘Approx a week after Savile's death NN reporter approached NN editor withsuggestion of a Savile paedophile story. Editor not convinced. Reporter revisitedand suggested Surrey Police issue in mid Nov. Work started to stand this up. Editor
alerts Head of News Programmes of possible contentious story.

11/302, Lines 16-21
11/102 – 11/104
11/104, Line 20
12/267
12/275- 164 -

Mid / Late Nov (Approx) HB made aware in passing and Head of News Programmes
updated on progress

Early Dec (approx.) Info that Surrey police behaved appropriately and info on why
CPS not pursuing the case was received and Editor decided evidence threshold notachieved. Advised Head of News Programme he is not taking forward’.

95. This timeline is obviously inaccurate in a number of key respects andinadequate. However, only very minor changes were suggested by Mr Rippon,
who asked that this be modified to say ‘Editor not convinced a NN story’, andthen ‘Editor more convinced’ when Police angle develops’, a line which Mr
Mitchell then endorsed.161 Mr Mitchell again relied entirely on Mr Rippon for theaccuracy of this timeline, and did not take steps to verify its content with others,
or to check the source material.162 Indeed, it appears that no one was doingso.
96. By this time, Mr Rippon was evidently concerned that he was being hung out todry by the BBC, as he asked Mr Mitchell and Ms Boaden if the BBC could be
more vocal in their support of him and his decision.163
5 October - Mr Entwistle’s All Staff Email97. On the evening of the 5 October, Mr Entwistle sent a note to all BBC staff
addressing what he described, perhaps euphemistically, as a ‘difficult week for
the BBC’164. This was drafted by Mr Entwistle165 and Mr Mylrea,166 without
reference to Mr Rippon, and stated, in part:‘As is now well known, the BBC Newsnight programme investigated Surrey Police's
enquiry into Jimmy Savile towards the end of 2011 but decided not to go ahead withthe broadcast. The decision was made honestly and honourably. I have seen no
evidence to suggest that any pressure at all was placed on the Editor to reach it, forthe reasons he set out in his blog earlier this week’.

98. The drafting history of this email is worthy of note, as it reveals that thereference to the focus of the Newsnight investigation was specifically changed.

161
162
163
164
165
166

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11/272, Lines 12-19
12/270 – 12/272
12/276 – 12/277
12/264
12/273- 165 -

In Mr Entwistle’s original draft from the morning of 4 October, the first sentence
read: ’It is now well-known that Newsnight investigated Jimmy Savile towards
the end of 2011’.167 This was changed, it appears, by Ms Boaden, to suggestthat the Newsnight investigation was into the Police investigation.168 Mr Mylrea
made a further suggestion (which did not ultimately make it into statement
issued by Mr Entwistle) that ’[t]he programme found that the police had properly
investigated but decided there were insufficient grounds to proceed’.169
99. Mr Mylrea told me that his proposed line was based on ‘the blog but also on
conversations with Paddy Feeney and the News team’,170 as well as Mr
Rippon’s briefing note, which he had been forwarded by Mr Mitchell on theafternoon of 3 October,171 notwithstanding his email to Mr Rippon and Ms
Boaden on 2 October in relation to the briefing note in which he said ‘asdiscussed this is for Helen and I and we will not be on passing’ 172 Mr Mylrea
suggested that this was simply a restatement of the ‘standing line’. When I
asked him if it was a bridge too far to say that the Police had properly
investigated, Mr Mylrea told me that he did not as this was what he had beenassured was the case by BBC News.173 He was also at pains to emphasisethat he was merely making a suggestion, as by this time, as he put it ‘it was thelegal team who were deciding whether these things were correct or notcorrect’.174 This snapshot of how the information process was developing gives
a good illustration of its lack of clarity and direction.
100. Very shortly after Mr Entwistle’s all staff email was circulated, Mr Jones sent a
reply to Mr Entwistle. Due to the way Mr Entwistle’s mailbox is arranged, he did
not receive this until the following Monday, after he had appeared on the Today
programme on Radio 4. In this email, Mr Jones did not make any criticism of
the blog, but did make the accurate point that the staff email was incorrect in its
assertion about the Newsnight investigation, as Newsnight had not known that
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174

12/264
12/265
12/265
11/307, Lines 2-3
12/245 – 12/246; 11/313 – 11/314
12/216
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11/310, Lines 19-23- 166 -

Surrey Police had investigated Jimmy Savile at the outset, and that this was
only discovered once the victims had been interviewed:‘George - one note - the investigation was into whether Jimmy Savile was apaedophile - I know because it was my investigation. We didn't know that Surrey
Police had investigated Jimmy Savile - no one did - that was what we found out when
we investigated and interviewed his victims’.175

Weekend of 6/7 October
101. After the publication of an apparently well sourced and detailed article by Miles
Goslett on 7 October, Ms Deller emailed Mr Feeny, expressing her concern at
continuing to rely on the blog in media responses.176
102. Separately, Mr Rippon emailed Ms Boaden that evening with information he felt
Mr Entwistle ought to be aware of – that there was no film ‘ready to run’, as only
one interview had been filmed.177 Ms Boaden in turn forwarded this to Mr
Mylrea and Mr Entwistle.178
8 October – Mr Entwistle asks Mr MacQuarrie to investigate
103. Mr Entwistle appeared on the Today programme on the morning of
8 October.179 The previous evening, he had received a briefing note from Mr
Mylrea which emphasised a number of the lines which had been developed
during the previous week, including that the allegations were fundamentally amatter for the Police, that the decision was Mr Rippon’s ‘and his alone’, andthat only one interview was recorded.180
104. Mr Rippon says that he was reassured by the language which Mr Entwistle
used,181 in particular he comments that:‘With the benefit of hindsight I think we could all wish that Newsnight was able to go as
far as ITV went, but on the basis of what he knew at the time I totally support his
judgement. You can't use hindsight …’.182
175
176
177
178
179
180
181

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12/285 – 12/287
11/443, Lines 5-9- 167 -

105. After giving his interview, Mr Entwistle received the email which Mr Jones had
sent the previous Friday, and also an email sent that morning by Ms
MacKean.183 Ms MacKean emailed Mr Entwistle to share her ‘disquiet’ with ‘thehandling of the Newsnight Savile story’.184 This email made the same point Mr
Jones had already made about the inaccuracy in the all staff email regarding
the focus of the Newsnight story, and went on to make some explicit criticismsof the accuracy of the Editor’s Blog and subsequent media statements:‘[It was not] as Peter Rippon implied in his blog, the sort of ‘celebrity exposé’ that
Newsnight would not normally go near. Our report contained serious allegations about
the behaviour of Jimmy Savile on and off BBC premises. Despite public assurances,again [in] the blog, that we had no information that was not already known to Surrey
police, in fact we did.
Ever since the report was dropped, just ahead of it being edited, there have been
repeated misleading statements from the press office about the nature of ourinvestigation’.

106. Ms Boaden recalls that, after receiving the emails from Mr Jones and Ms
MacKean, Mr Entwistle came to see her, and that she told him that an
investigation was required (in anticipation of disciplinary action against Mr
Rippon) due to the seriousness of the matter.185
107. Mr Entwistle said that he was reluctant to talk to Mr Jones and Ms MacKean
himself because if any disciplinary sanction was appealed ‘and just about every
disciplinary action at the BBC always gets appealed’, he would be the ultimate
decision maker.186 I was surprised by this statement, which seems to be an
example of a rigidity within the BBC on the extent of each individual’s role andan unwillingness to go beyond that. That this rigidity extended to Mr Entwistle
was particularly surprising: if the Director General needs, for the sake of theBBC, to get information, the Director General should surely have no qualms
about doing so. It would have been easy for Mr Entwistle to have put in place
an alternative appeal process in this instance.

182
183
184
185
186

11/46, Lines 6-9
11/105 – 11/109
12/294
11/049 – 11/050
11/099- 168 -

108. Mr Entwistle instead asked Ken MacQuarrie the Director of BBC Scotland toinvestigate the matter. Mr MacQuarrie was chosen, Mr Entwistle says, as hewas someone external to BBC News whom he could trust.
109. Mr Entwistle says that while the accuracy of the blog was in his mind when heasked Mr MacQuarrie to investigate, he was also concerned by a ‘general
sense I had that they didn't seem to know what they had investigated and that
we couldn't go on trying to defend an investigation about which there was suchan enormous difference of opinion’.187 He said that it was inaccurate to refer to
MacQuarrie’s investigations as an ‘inquiry’, and that it was instead intended togive Ms MacKean and Mr Jones:‘... a relatively safe environment in which they could tell the whole of their story, so thatwould get to me and start to inform my judgement about whether or not I was being
given a realistic picture of what happened on Newsnight, by [that] route I would [have]expected to get a realistic picture, i.e. from the editor Newsnight up the News chain ofcommand, or whether the scale of the misunderstanding or disagreement toNewsnight on what they had actually done was so distorting the thing that I needed tothink of another way of dealing with it’. 188

110. As to what Mr Entwistle hoped to gain from this, he says:‘What I really wanted Kenny to do was to bring in a bit of brain space that I didn't have,or time I didn't have at that moment, and there were other reasons I didn't want to talkto them myself, to get somebody outside the News bell jar to start to give me an
opinion of what he thought might be going on there’. 189

8 October - Mr Mitchell Ends Active Involvement
111. Before Mr Mitchell became aware of Mr Entwistle’s decision to ask Mr
MacQuarrie to investigate, Mr Mitchell met with Ms MacKean, where she
repeated her concerns about the accuracy of Mr Rippon’s explanation for
discontinuing the story,190 effectively accusing Mr Rippon of being untruthful inrelation to his explanation of why the investigation was dropped.191 She also
expressed her concern that there were fundamental errors with the blog which

187
188
189
190
191

11/096
11/096 – 11/097
11/098, Lines 8-13
10/090, Para 27
11/271, Lines 10-15- 169 -

were creating a ‘completely false impression of our story’.192 Ms MacKean’s
expectation was that Mr Mitchell would take these concerns up the chain, thatis, to Ms Boaden.193
112. Ms MacKean says that Mr Mitchell conceded that if he and Mr Rippon ‘hadshown “more imagination” they might have grasped that the story was animportant one’.194 She also says that Mr Mitchell told her twice, in relation topress charges of cover-up ahead of the tribute programmes, 'Liz it’s importantyou are aware that corporately the BBC is all right on this’.195 Ms MacKean told
me that she took this to mean that there was no smoking gun which would
demonstrate undue influence on the decision not to broadcast, although she
acknowledged that a more innocuous interpretation was possible.196
113. Mr Mitchell was also involved in an exchange of emails with Mr Jones, triggeredby Mr Mitchell’s reply to Mr Jones’s email of the previous Friday. The reply
referred to Mr Mitchell’s frustration at the level of media briefing which was
occurring, but stated that he was more concerned about Mr Jones’s allegations,concluding that he would ‘now need to decide how best to deal with what you
have alleged’,197 a statement which Mr Jones’s claims to have interpreted as an‘implicit threat’.198

Mr Jones’s lengthy reply contended that while ‘The line

which the BBC has been putting out all year is wrong’ he was not ‘calling
anyone a liar or accusing any individual of dishonesty’.199
114. This was for all practical purposes the end of Mr Mitchell’s active involvement in
discussions regarding Mr Jones’s and Ms MacKean’s concerns. He and Ms
Boaden took the view that, once Mr MacQuarrie had been tasked withinvestigating Ms MacKean’s and Mr Jones’s complaints about the blog, thematter was effectively out of their hands.200 As Mr Mitchell put it, it was then

192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200

11/235, Lines 13-19
11/236, Lines 3-10
10/081, Para 45
10/081, Para 45
11/235, Lines 1-13
12/29810/059, Para 24.6
12/304
10/091; 11/273 – 11/274; 10/008; 12/315 11/275, Lines 17-24- 170 -

part of a ‘corporate’ process.201 Mr Entwistle says that he was unaware of thecommunications between Mr Mitchell, Mr Jones and Ms MacKean and that hewas surprised to learn, upon reviewing the documents provided to this Review,‘that they were having a conversation about inaccuracies in the blog in thedetail they were as early as they were, without that having been made known
any further up the system’.202
115. Mr Rippon says that, while he was made aware of the fact of the MacQuarrieprocess, he was not provided with any specifics, although he assumed it was
about the blog.203 Mr Rippon says that he recognised at this stage that the blog
needed to be changed, but that, as he was not made aware of what precisely
was being disputed because Mr MacQuarrie did not talk to him, he washamstrung as ‘the prospect of having to change it twice was not something I
was prepared to contemplate’.204 Mr Rippon recalls at least two, and probably
three, phone conversations with Mr Mitchell around this time in which heattempted to elicit this information.205 It is only on 11 October, when details of
the MacQuarrie process were leaked to the Guardian, that Mr Rippon becameaware of the alleged inaccuracies which were being looked at.206
10 October – Mr MacQuarrie Reports Back
116. On 10 October Mr Rippon finally agreed that Newsnight should cover the Savile
story the following evening. There had been considerable debate within theNewsnight team about whether to cover the Savile story and how, if at all, theirown part in it should be reported. As I explained above, Mr Paxman had beenpressing Mr Rippon hard for the programme to cover the story from 2 October.
117. The result of Mr MacQuarrie’s investigation was a one page file note which was
passed to Mr Entwistle on 10 October.207 This reported that Mr Jones’s and Ms
MacKean’s main complaint was that their journalism was represented as weak.
201
202
203
204
205
206
207

10/006; 12/305 – 12/306
11/095, Lines 8-14
11/444
11/444, Lines 14-23
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11/447
12/307 – 12/308- 171 -

Both Mr Jones and Ms MacKean were reported as feeling that the nature of theNewsnight story had not been properly described in the blog, Mr Entwistle’s all
staff email of the previous Friday, or by the Press Office. They considered that
Newsnight had had new evidence, that the story was broader and stronger than
implied by the blog, and that the involvement of the Police and CPS became
strong strands of the story but were not the whole story. It is noteworthy thatneither Mr Jones nor Ms MacKean alleged that Mr Rippon was pressured into
dropping the programme, but both did express surprise at the rapid change in
Mr Rippon’s stance.
118. Mr Entwistle read this note that evening.208

The MacQuarrie process had

achieved little. Mr Entwistle spoke to Mr MacQuarrie the next day (11 October),and told me that after this call he was convinced that it would not be possible toget an accurate account of events ‘that would be bought into by the entire
culture’ unless an external review was held.209 In part this was because of thelevel of disagreement and emotion involved, but the reference to ‘entire culture’refers to the fact that bringing Mr MacQuarrie in to investigate was seen as‘immensely insulting’ by the News division,210 resulting in a reaction which Mr
Entwistle described as a ‘cultural howl’.211
119. The consequence was that Mr Entwistle says he reached the conclusion
that:212‘… the way I was going to be able to do anything about the blog was to make sure thatthe legal team did a forensic analysis of all the underpinning documents and thus wereable to give me a non-emotional account of what had been wrong with the blog’.

120. This resulted in a delay before any action was taken to correct the blog while
the BBC legal department reconstructed events from the documentary material
they had already gathered in order to ensure that all relevant material had been
provided to the Police.213

208
209
210
211
212

213

11/115, Line 17
11/116, Lines 9-12
11/116, Line 5
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11/117 – 11/118- 172 -

121. Mr Mylrea told me that he was excluded from this ‘legal led’ process, and thatat this time his understanding was that ‘the substance of what we're saying is
still correct’.214 He says he was unaware of any change of this position until 19
October, when Mr Entwistle told him that BBC Legal had reached theconclusion that the blog needed to be changed.215 Mr Mylrea told me that,during the intervening period, the BBC Press Office’s view was that:‘This is going to be sorted out by an inquiry because quite frankly we can't justconstantly say something and have it immediately challenged by sources close toNewsnight, and that remained the position, this sort of lockdown in "This is going to go
to the review", until the 19th when I received the communication from George saying"The legal team has now concluded, after an investigation, that, you know, we'regoing to change the blog’. 216

122. While the question of correcting the blog was effectively put on ice pending theoutcome of the investigations by BBC Legal, on 11 October Mr Entwistle
established a “Gold, Silver, Bronze” structure to co-ordinate the BBC’s
response to the Savile allegations and related matters.217 The ‘Gold Team’consisted of Mr Entwistle (who was ‘Gold commander’), Lucy Adams, Directorof Human Resources, Mr Jordan, Mr Mylrea, Ms Cecil, Sarah Jones (the Headof Legal) and Mr Mosey (who was ‘incident commander’).
11/12 October – BBC News Contemplates Correcting the Blog
123. After the details of the MacQuarrie investigation were leaked to, and publishedby, the Guardian on the evening of 11 October, there was a flurry of discussion
within BBC News and its press office about publishing a correction to the blog,
with Mr Feeny reporting that Mr Mitchell had suggested a ‘follow up’, but that
this be kept brief:218‘Spoken to Steve, who suggests we say for follow up something like: ‘the editors [sic]blog was written in good faith and following conversations to recall the sequence of
events between newsnight staff’.
Anything else, even this, may provoke more anonymous denials’.

214
215
216
217
218

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124. Mr Rippon replied:‘OK fine.
We then need to take a view about whether we need to amend the blog if it isinaccurate... keep in mind that if we did have something we should have given thepolice Liz and Meirion failed to make that clear to me. We were asked the question
many months ago and Meirion has always strongly maintained to me that we did not’,
219

125. Mr Rippon was, by this stage, amenable to amending the blog. Mr Rippon said
that the tipping point for him was the emergence, in the course of producingthat night’s edition of Newsnight, of the second on-camera interview (with[R3]).220 Mr Rippon explained that if he had ever known about this second
interview, he had forgotten.
126. Mr Mylrea told me that nothing in the exchange referred to above indicated that
there was a ‘significant substantive issue in the blog’ requiring that it comedown, but rather that there might have been an inaccuracy regarding whether’all’ or ’some’ of the women had spoken to the Police, although this was itself
disputed.221 He told me that ‘to buy us some time until we got into the review
and we could look at the thing in extenso, the line was written which was thatthe blog was "written in good faith"’. However, he told us it was not thought thatthe blog was ‘substantially wrong’.222
127. The following morning, Mr Rippon emailed Mr Mitchell and Ms Boaden an
account of why he wrote the blog in the terms that he did.223 This related Mr
Rippon’s discussions with Mr Jones, and stated, with respect to [R1]:‘It was not until her ITV interview last week, after I wrote my blog that I was aware she
was saying she had not spoken to the police... none of this undermines [the] reasons I
decided to pull the piece. Which as I make clear in the blog was about the police
investigation AND having to weigh issues like credibility of testimony’.

And with regard to the provision of evidence to the Police:

219
220
221
222
223

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12/313 – 12/314- 174 -

‘The accusation that we may be withholding evidence from the police was first madeearlier this year after my decision not to publish in December had been leaked to thepress. I discussed this with Meirion Jones then and he assured me that we had nomaterial that would be useful to a police investigation. This made sense to me as I
was under the impression that the police had investigated the claims already.
Before writing my blog I was aware that this allegation needed addressing so I called
Meirion Jones to clarify this position again. I made a note of the key exchange a few
hours later. I said to him that we could not be holding anything from the police because
all the women had been part of the investigation. He replied:‘basically all the women we spoke to had spoken to the police and anyway we did nothave anything evidential about anyone alive that would have been useful to the police.’
On that basis I wrote what I wrote in my blog’.

128. Mr Rippon said that that the passage quoted in the email was a direct quotefrom his discussion with Mr Jones on 1 October.224 Mr Jones disputed this –see the discussion above.
129. While Mr Rippon’s account was explicitly written ‘in order to assist the corporate
decision’ about the ‘apparent discrepancy’ in the blog, this was sent to Mr
Mitchell and Ms Boaden. This was, as Mr Rippon explained, because they
‘being my line managers... are the people who I communicate up the tree
through’.225 He was unaware of what subsequently became of this email, butsuggested that it was clear what he was trying to do – i.e. to feed into thediscussion about what aspects of the blog required clarification.226
12 October – Reviews Are Announced
130. BBC Legal then contacted Ms MacKean requesting details of ‘exactly what was
obtained/created’ during the course of the investigation.227 This, Ms MacKean
told me, was the first time she had been asked for this information.228
131. On the evening of 12 October, Mr Jones again emailed Mr Entwistle inapparent frustration:

224
225
226
227
228

11/450, Lines 6-9
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12/325
11/237, Lines 15-16- 175 -

‘…you are still not being accurately briefed. I’m sending you a copy of the script as it
was on Wednesday 30th – by Monday 5th December when we started editing we had asecond on-camera interview in the can, part of which was shown last night.’ 229

132. Mr Entwistle said that he was surprised to receive this email as he was of thefirm belief, based on an understanding that BBC Litigation had a note of aconversation they had had with Mr Jones that there was only a single interview
on tape.230 Such a note does exist, although it was only produced to me on thenight before the Report was finalised. On the face of it, the note records Mr
Jones telling the BBC that there is “only 1 girl on tape”, which corroborates theaccount of Mr Entwistle. I am content to leave it at that.
133. This uncertainty confirmed, Mr Entwistle’s sense that the only way to get an
accurate account of the facts was to let the review being conducted by the legal
team run its course, something he hoped would occur in the next week.231 Mr
Entwistle did not respond to this email personally, and Ms Cecil instead
responded a week later (which appears to be a long time), that it had been
passed to the legal team and to this Review.232
Week of 12 October
134. On 16 October, Mr Jones made a direct attempt to talk to Mr Entwistle. Mr
Jones requested an off-the-record conversation, which Mr Entwistle (perhaps
mindful of the inaccuracies in the note referred to above) rebuffed, he explains
because any such conversation have would have needed to be on the record,
but also because ‘to be frank, I didn't trust him to have an off-the-record
conversation with me’.233
135. Mr Entwistle said that he tasked BBC Legal with contacting Mr Jones urgently
to hear what he had to say, but that this approach was rebuffed by Mr Jones.234
Mr Entwistle also says that by this stage he was doubtful as to whether Mr

229
230
231
232
233
234

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11/119 – 11/120- 176 -

Jones could be trusted to provide accurate information.235 The basis for his
doubt he told us was the report from BBC Litigation, which I deal with above,that Mr Jones had assured them, in a noted conversation, that there was only
one interview on tape.
136. By this time, the BBC current affairs programme ‘Panorama’ was working on a
programme about the Savile allegations which would include details of theNewsnight investigations. Mr Jones had moved from Newsnight to Panorama
to help with the production of the Panorama programme but, in the light ofcomplaints that this would be inappropriate, it was agreed that Mr Jones would
act only as a contributor to the programme rather than as part of the production
team.
137. Peter Horrocks had been given responsibility for editorial management of BBC
news coverage of the Savile story, including the Panorama programme,
because the normal news management team of Ms Boaden and Mr Mitchell
had stood aside to avoid any conflict of interest due to their involvement in theoriginal Newsnight story. Mr Horrocks arranged for statements to be given by
Mr Jones and Ms MacKean which were forwarded to Mr Entwistle.
138. On 16 October, the Press Office enlisted the help of Brunswick, an external
public relations agency. Mr Mylrea explained that this happened because thePress Office itself was overwhelmed, and as a consequence he was having totake charge of both strategy and fire-fighting simultaneously. A week later,
Brunswick’s services were dispensed with as a result, Mr Mylrea told me, of adirective from the BBC Trust, as it was thought inappropriate for a public sector
organisation to have such external support. Brunswick were tasked with what
Mr Mylrea described as ‘scenario planning’, and in the short time they were
instructed had only managed to provide ‘a sort of first think piece of some of thethings we needed to think about’.236
139. Lord Patten told me that he believed it had been a mistake to hire Brunswick
and that to have the Director General of the BBC briefed by a Brunswick
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consultant, a former editor of the Sun was, as he put it, “a seriously lousy
story”. 237 Lord Patten agreed that the atmosphere surrounding Mr Entwistle atthe end of October had been ’chaotic’238 and that both he and the NonExecutive members of the BBC’s Executive Board had tried to suggest to Mr
Entwistle “that he needed to strengthen the team around him”. 239

Hecontinued:“i think he was not given the support which he could have expected and could
reasonably have expected from some of his senior colleagues, and some of thespecific advice that he got – for example on some of his own appearances – was, I
think, pretty bizarre.”240

Weekend of 20/21 October
The ‘Corporate Statement’
140. Panorama put a list of questions to Mr Entwistle, Ms Boaden, Mr Mitchell andMr Rippon. Mr Mitchell, Mr Entwistle, Ms Boaden and Mr Rippon all declined toengage with these individually. Mr Mitchell told me that his decision not toengage was on the advice of the Press Office.241 Mr Mylrea explained to me
that this was not a Press Office decision, but instead a decision by BBC
lawyers which he found frustrating.242
141. Mr Mylrea discussed with Mr Horrocks the possibility of BBC making a
corporate response, and as a consequence a number of ‘corporate questions’
were posed for response.243‘corporate statement’.

In response to these, the BBC developed a

Mr Mylrea suggested that the development of thisstatement was also ‘taken over’ by BBC lawyers.244

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142. The corporate statement contained a line which was not in the blog correction –that is: 245‘We should also make it clear we now accept that the Newsnight investigation did notstart out as an investigation into the Surrey police's handling of the case against Mr
Savile’.

143. This led to an accusation by some media outlets that, by providing thiscorrection as Panorama was going to air (and placing it on the website thefollowing day), the BBC ensured that the media focus on the day of the
Panorama broadcast was on the correction of Mr Rippon’s blog, deflecting still
more blame onto Mr Rippon’s shoulders. When this was put to Mr Mylrea, hecharacterised it as a ‘glorious accusation’, but one which was incorrect. His
explanation was that:‘The fact was I was presented with two statements, in which I didn't have any input.
The first was a statement which was a correction of the blog and the second was a
response to Panorama and it was a direct response to direct questions from
Panorama, and that was the approved line.
The reason that Panorama line was not put out was because it is absolutely normal
practice that, if a newspaper or programme or journalist asks a question, you give theanswer to that individual, to that programme. You don't -- you don't make it available
to others until after that journalist or that programme has -- has written their article orproduced their programme’. 246

This explanation seems reasonable.
The Blog is Corrected
144. Mr Jordan recalled that Mr Entwistle spent large parts of the weekend ‘closetedwith lawyers’ talking, he assumed, about changes to the blog.247 Over thecourse of this weekend, Mr Entwistle received from BBC Legal a table listing
inaccuracies they had identified in the blog.248
145. Mr Entwistle phoned Lord Patten on the morning of Sunday 21 October,although he says on reflection he wished he had phoned a day earlier as he

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was ‘absolutely convinced’ by the Saturday morning that he was going to haveto correct the blog.249
146. Mr Mitchell and Ms Boaden resisted the notion that their names should
accompany the corrective statement.

Mr Mitchell explained that he was

reluctant to do so as the corrections were the result of a corporate process
which he had not been privy to.250
147. Mr Rippon was contacted by Mr Jordan on the morning of Saturday 20 October
and informed that the blog needed to be revised, a point he acknowledged.251
Mr Rippon says Mr Jordan told him that this needed to occur before Mr
Entwistle’s appearance before the select committee the following Tuesday. Mr
Rippon agreed it could be done for Monday morning and that his lawyer would
assist him with the wording on Sunday afternoon.252
148. Mr Rippon says that Ms Boaden then called him on Sunday 21 October aroundlunchtime demanding his revisions in the next three hours, and that an hourlater he received a call from Richard Thurston, the head of HR for BBC News,
advising that it was likely that he would have to step aside as editor ofNewsnight.
149. Mr Rippon says that after receiving this news, he called Mr Mylrea to ask whatcorrections were required, and that when Mr Mylrea wasn’t sure, he suggested
four, which Mr Mylrea said must be made by 5pm.253 Mr Rippon says that hemet this deadline, but instead of a response, he received a call from the Press
Office asking for comment on a Daily Mail story that he had resigned.254
150. In the afternoon of 20 October, Mr Payne sent Mr Mylrea an eye-opening text
message in the context of a discussion about media queries about whether Mr
Entwistle would resign:

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‘Thought of the hour. PR changes blog and accepts he was wrong and goes giving
panorama a scalp. GE then goes into Select saying he backed his editor as you would
expect. Turns out he was wrong sad but he did the right thing and we all move on???’255

151. Two days later, after the blog correction had been made, another message wassent from Mr Payne to Mr Mylrea saying:‘Think am going to need to brief hard today that PR blog was the basis for all our
position on this. Only way to protect GE etc. Would be good to know if they had any
corroborating views besides just that’. 256

152. Just ten minutes after this text message was sent, Mr Mylrea sent an email to
Mr Mitchell, Mr Feeny and Adams forwarding the cleared lines on the blog
correction and Mr Rippon’s ‘stepping aside’, but adding that Mr Mitchell and Mr
Jones should tell Mr Rippon that he was ’happy to reassure him personally wewill be doing everything possible to support him’.257
153. Mr Mylrea told me that the text messages between him and Mr Payne wereprivate communications for the purpose of scenario planning, which were notshared with others,258 and Mr Entwistle distanced himself from these
discussions, saying that that they were a ‘conversation going on in thecommunications community whose job it is to think about things like that’, butthat they did not reflect his thinking.259
154. By 22 October, the blog appeared to be regarded by some as a means of
insulating the Director General from criticism. Ms Boaden, commenting on this,suggested:‘…it was the only information we had. It was the only solid thing. And it was such a
confusing time with … the world's media battering at the door making connections that
felt … very, very challenging, you know: what did George know, what did he do? In asense Peter's blog filled a vacuum’.260

It does appear to me that, by this stage, Mr Rippon was becoming something ofa ‘fall guy’.
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155. The corrections which were eventually posted on the BBC website at 10.48am
were that:‘1.The blog says that Newsnight had no evidence that anyone from the Duncroft home
could or should have known about the allegations. In fact some allegations were made(mostly in general terms) that some of the Duncroft staff knew or may have known
about the abuse.
2. The blog says that Newsnight had no evidence against the BBC. No allegation wasmade to the programme that BBC staff were aware of Mr Savile's alleged activities, butthere were some allegations of abusive conduct on BBC premises.
3. The blog says that all the women spoken to by the programme had contacted thepolice independently already and that Newsnight had no new evidence against anyother person that would have helped the police. It appears that in some cases women
had not spoken to the police and that the police were not aware of all the allegations’.

156. Very shortly after the corrections were published, Mr Jones emailed Mr
Horrocks expressing concern that the corrections did not go far enough. Thiswas followed up by a second email just after 2pm in which he said (among
other things):‘The correction does not deal with the most glaring inaccuracy in the blog. The blog
says the whole motivation of the investigation was that the key witness told us thepolice had investigated the claims but the case had been dropped on the grounds that
he was too old. That is completely false.
Any correction would say that the key witness had not spoken to the police andtherefore the whole story in the blog about why Newsnight set out on the investigation
cannot be right’. 261

157. The former point was picked up in the Corporate statement, as explained
above. However, the latter point remained uncorrected (save in general termsby the reference to the wording beginning ‘some women had…’)) on the basisof a view from the BBC’s legal team that it was unclear, without more
information (which could not be obtained because my Review had by then beencommissioned) as to who the key witness was that Mr Rippon was referring to.
158. In passing, further points arise arising out of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines. As
the Guidelines themselves provide:-261

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‘Knowledge of the Guidelines is an essential professional skill, and everyone
who makes the BBC’s content is contractually required to familiarise
themselves with them and work within them’.
159. The particular guidelines of potential relevance here are:

Paragraph 3.2.4 which provides that, where errors become apparent:‘We should normally acknowledge serious factual errors and correct
them quickly, clearly and appropriately’”. Paragraph 3.4.26 of the
Guidelines has a similar effect;In relation to online content, paragraph 3.4.22 provides that:‘At the time when BBC content is posted online, the department
responsible for its creation should decide on a coherent strategy of its
management over time’. This clearly did not happen in this situation;

 Paragraph 3.4.24, which deals with the removal of online content
requires that:‘An appropriate mechanism, including a system of referrals, should be inplace to remove or revoke BBC online content.. and published on a BBCsite or syndicated elsewhere’.
I have tried to find the guidance suggested by these words and it does
not seem to exist – the online version of the Guidelines contains a link toa page which states that this is “coming soon” and further states:‘The Editorial Policy Guidance Note on Taking Down Online Material isin preparation. In the meantime, please read the Editorial Guidelines
Section 3 Accuracy: Managing Online Content and Contact Editorial
Policy for further advice’.
The Correction Process
160. The Chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, said that from relatively early in
October, he and his fellow Trust members were receiving too little information
about what was happening; ‘What we were able to glean about what was
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particular, the stories that appeared in The Guardian’ 262rather than from the
BBC Executive.
161. He said his fellow Trust members were ‘very angry’263 about the process ofcorrecting the blog which he described as ‘ham-fisted’ 264 and continued, ‘itdoes seem to me that there are reasonable grounds for assuming that people
knew the blog was dodgy a lot earlier and that we were left defending
something that wasn’t true’.265
162. These were clearly very challenging times in the BBC: but it is in those times
that leadership is required. It is clear that the BBC was thrown into disarray by
the errors the blog and had no structure in place to deal with them. What ismarked, however, is both the time it took for the errors to be addressed and thefact that, for some time at least, no one individual fully stepped up and took
responsibility for the issue. I am, in this context, critical of Mr Entwistle, whobecame aware of issues with the blog at an early stage and who, while notinactive, appears to have taken a long time to take any real control of theissues. Likewise, I am surprised that Ms Boaden does not appear to havetaken a more pro-active role. I acknowledge that she was not on the gold team
set up by Mr Entwistle on 11 October, but it was clear that a significant part ofthe division she headed was in virtual meltdown, and I would have expected
her to have taken a more active role in resolving things. In correspondence
between the Review and Ms Boaden’s lawyers, arguments were raised that it
would be highly unfair to criticise her and to attribute any failings to her during
this period, but I think that, given her position, she should have taken muchgreater responsibility. Mr Mitchell was – for a time – involved, but unfortunately
his actions do not seem to have made a significant contribution to resolving theBBC’s difficulties.
163. I think the decision fully to involve the legal department was taken too late andthat valuable time was lost in the interim. I note that a “gold, silver, bronze”

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structure was set up to co-ordinate the response and that there was a “goldteam”. However, it is not clear how effective that was.
In my view, while the issues faced were challenging, a particular cultural issue (inwhich I have commented elsewhere in the Report) contributed to this issue. I
have been struck by what I view as a “silo mentality” at the BBC – the notionthat everyone knows what his or her job is, but there is reluctance to step into
someone else’s territory and, indeed, a person who does would be criticised. In
my view, such an approach hinders leadership and the proper taking of control.
On this, I can say no more, beyond recommending to the BBC that it looks at
this issue and considers ways in which it might be addressed.

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