Hutton delivers damning verdict on BBC

Owen Gibson and Ciar Byrne Wednesday January 28, 2004

Hutton report: worst possible verdict for BBC

Lord Hutton today delivered the worst possible verdict for the BBC,
describing its editorial systems as "defective" and declaring that the board
of governors led by chairman Gavyn Davies had failed in its duty to act as
an independent regulator. The judge lambasted BBC management for allowing
the Radio 4 Today reporter Andrew Gilligan to broadcast "unfounded", "grave"
and "false allegations of fact impugning the integrity of others".

In a wide-ranging and unequivocal attack on the corporation that also took
in the board of governors and BBC journalism, Lord Hutton said editorial
systems had failed, leaving the futures of director general Greg Dyke,
chairman Gavyn Davies and head of news Richard Sambrook hanging precariously
in the balance.

The BBC is making a statement within the hour and there have already been
reports that Mr Davies is considering his position.

Gilligan made 'unfounded' allegations

Lord Hutton criticised Gilligan for making "unfounded" and "grave"
allegations that the government probably knew that the 45-minute claim was
wrong or that it was not inserted in the first draft of the dossier because
it only came from one source.

"The allegations that Mr Gilligan was intending to broadcast in respect of
the government and the preparation of the dossier were very grave
allegations in relation to a subject of great importance.

"And I consider that the editorial system which the BBC permitted was
defective in that Mr Gilligan was allowed to broadcast his report at 6.07am
without editors having seen a script of what he was going to say and having
considered whether it should be approved," ruled Lord Hutton.

BBC management and governors failed in their duties

He said that BBC managers, including Mr Dyke and the governors, had failed
in two respects.

Firstly, he said they failed to ask for an investigation into the veracity
of Gilligan's report and secondly they failed to appreciate that Gilligan's
notes "did not support" his May 29 broadcast on the Today programme.

"The governors are to be criticised for failing to make a more detailed
investigation into whether the allegation by Mr Gilligan was properly
supported by his notes and failing to give proper and adequate consideration
to whether the BBC should publicly acknowledge that this very grave
allegation should not have been broadcast," Lord Hutton said.

He said had they asked for Gilligan's notes "they would probably have
discovered that the notes did not support the allegations that the
government knew that the 45-minute claim was probably wrong."

And, in a devastating indictment of the governors, Lord Hutton said they
should "then have questioned whether it was right for the BBC to maintain
that it was in the public interest to broadcast that allegation".

All the way down the editorial chain of command, the BBC had taken on trust
that Gilligan's report was factually correct. This, he said, was a
fundamental dereliction of duty by the governors and management.

He pointed out that the BBC head of news, Richard Sambrook, had replied to
Alastair Campbell's complaints without seeing Gilligan's notes.

"The BBC management failed, before Mr Sambrook wrote his letter of June 27
2003 to Mr Campbell, to make an examination of Mr Gilligan's notes on his
personal organiser of his meeting with Dr Kelly to see if they supported the
allegations which he had made in his broadcast at 6.07am," said the judge.

"When the BBC management did look at Gilligan's notes after June 27, it
failed to appreciate that the notes did not fully support the most serious
of the allegations which he had reported in the 6.07am broadcast, and it
therefore failed to draw the attention of the governors to the lack of
support in the notes for the most serious of the allegations" he added.

Today editor and head of radio news also at fault

Lord Hutton said the incriminating email sent by Today editor Kevin Marsh to
head of radio news Stephen Mitchell, which admitted that Gilligan's story
was "marred by flawed reporting" and "loose use of language", should have
passed on to BBC bosses before they replied to Campbell.

The judge said the fact that Mr Sambrook and the governors did not know
about this email "shows a defect in the operation of the BBC's management
system for the consideration of complaints in respect of broadcasts".

He ruled that BBC managers and governors were wrong to defend Gilligan's
story without knowing the full facts and cleared the government of the broad
thrust of the allegations, that it had "sexed up" the dossier to advance its
case for war.

The scale of his criticism has sent shock waves through the BBC,
particularly as the way in which the intelligence dossier was drawn up was
vindicated by Lord Hutton despite reservations expressed by some
intelligence sources during the inquiry about the language used.

"I do not consider it was improper for Mr Scarlett [chairman of the Joint
Intelligence Committee] and the JIC to take into account suggestions made by
Number 10 and adopt those suggestions if they were consistent with the
intelligence available," said the report.

BBC did not heed government denial

Lord Hutton said the government had stated to the BBC in "clear terms" that
the report that the government probably knew the 45-minute claim was wrong
was untruthful.

He said given this denial was made with the authority of the prime minister
and the chairman of JIC, that the BBC governors, rather than relying on the
assurance of BBC management, should have made more detailed investigations
into the extent to which Gilligan's notes supported the report.

Lord Hutton's conclusions are bound to provoke renewed calls for the BBC to
come under the aegis of new media regulator Ofcom or a separate regulatory
body.

Lord Hutton took the governors to task for leaping to the defence of the BBC
without giving proper consideration to whether Gilligan's story was
supported by his notes.

The corporation's critics are likely to seize on Lord Hutton's verdict as
evidence that Mr Davies was too close to the director general and saw his
role as defending the corporation rather than regulating it. The chairman
argued that he was acting on behalf of licence fee payers and not BBC
management.

"The governors should have realised more fully than they did that their duty
to protect the independence of the BBC was not incompatible with giving
proper consideration to whether there was validity in the governments
complaints," said Lord Hutton.

Minutes of the governors' meeting released on July 6 showed that the
governors and Mr Davies had their own concerns about Gilligan's broadcast.

However, they believed that the principle of defending the BBC's journalism
was more important than expressing their concern over the reporting of the
story. "If you say it tonight, you are disowning Andrew Gilligan," Mr Davies
warned his fellow governors.

Mr Dyke, who has been bullish in the run-up to the publication of the
report, will also come under pressure to resign after Lord Hutton said he
considered "the editorial system which the BBC permitted was defective" and
"at fault" for failing to investigate Gilligan's allegations.

Mr Dyke is ultimately responsible for all of the corporation's output as
editor in chief. He has already told staff there would be "no scapegoating
inside the BBC as a result of the Hutton inquiry".

It is understood that he plans to go on the offensive if he doesn't agree
with Lord Hutton's damning verdict. In an email to staff, Mr Dyke has
already said the BBC will only take the report on board if he agreed with
its conclusions.

"What is important once Hutton is published is that if the BBC is criticised
we learn from whatever is written - assuming of course that we agree with
what is said," he wrote.

The corporation has already instigated a number of changes designed to take
the sting out of Lord Hutton's criticism. World Service chief Mark Byford
has been installed as deputy director general to oversee a root and branch
review of complaints procedures and the corporation has banned employees
from writing columns for newspapers.