Especially the inquiry into Newsnight’s decision to pause its investigation into Surrey police and those allegations that they and/or the Crown Prosecution Service mishandled abuse complaints made against Jimmy Savile.
It’s an inquiry born out of frustration. And it’s easy to see
where the frustration comes from.
In spite of the clearest possible denials
from all concerned, the suspicion persists that he or another BBC "boss" pressured Newsnight editor Peter Rippon to “pull” a ten or twelve minute film detailing Savile's crimes.
That's not what happened and, unsurprisingly, there’s never been any evidence that it did. Anyone sane who knows the BBC would have to conclude that Rippon shelved the investigation for sound editorial
reasons, not through pressure from above.
Exactly as he and everyone else involved have insisted throughout. Exactly what the Newsnight
inquiry will find.
But that might be the start and not the end of the new DG's real problems.
Suspicion
Let’s be clear what the suspicion, the allegation, amounts to.
It’s not that Newsnight’s
decision to shelve its inquiry was a bad call. Nor that the editor was excessively
cautious, influenced by nods or winks or made a decision he thought his bosses
wanted with one eye on his career. Though, as it happens, none of that's true either.
Here’s how the Daily
Mail, put it:
“A Newsnight report
was due to be screened in December, two months after Savile's death, but was pulled by bosses … attempting to cover up the allegations in an
effort to protect (the BBC’s) own
reputation.” (My emphasis)
OK?
Once more just to make sure; the important bits anyway: “
…pulled by bosses … attempting to cover up the allegations in an effort to
protect (the BBC’s) reputation”.
Got it?
Tabloid priorities
Now, it’s worth saying from the outset that the very tabloids and
journalists who've frothed over ‘what must have happened’ at the BBC signally failed even to contemplate let alone launch any investigation of their
own into Savile.
If the public record is anything to go by, only one tabloid editor, Paul Connew, ever had the courage to go after Savile and to explain why nothing came of it.
When he was editor of the
Sunday Mirror, he wanted to publish the “credible and convincing”
testimony of two of Savile’s victims but was lawyered out.
That was back in
1994 since when, apparently, no other tabloid editor ever lifted a finger to investigate the
rumours that were rife in what we used to call Fleet Street. Presumably they were all too busy hacking phones,
libelling the McCann family,
lynching Chris Jeffries,
entrapping the witless and
stalking nineteen year old girls.
Not even when Savile had died and the risk of libel had passed
away with him was there any flicker of interest from the press. Were their safes not full of witness testimony waiting for their briefs' green lights? Apparently not.
Instead, just as Newsnight was ramping up its investigation, the same tabloids that have been spitting outrage at the BBC in the last week were lionising Savile, much as they had during his lifetime, re-running the kind of uncritical profiles that had done as much
as anything at the BBC to elevate him to the ‘national treasure’ status he used
so effectively to enable and shield his abuse of young women.*
Editorial decisions
The
Newsnight investigation was not as the press coverage over the past week or so has portrayed it. Almost every assumption that's been made about it is wrong.
** Update 22/12/12: in the light of the BBC's statement this morning, it's clear that the conversations, statements and accounts on which I based this blog were not complete.**
For instance, the
Newsnight
investigation was never into Savile’s criminally abusive activities
per se. It was triggered by the charge that Surrey police had dropped a 2007 investigation into 40 year old abuse allegations because Savile, by then, was too old and frail.
Nor was there ever a cut, ten minute or - depending on your reading choice - twelve minute film ready to go that was "pulled". When the
Newsnight editor paused the investigation, it was still at the evidence gathering stage ... evidence he was beginning to have doubts about.
In other words, there was nothing to "pull" - there was an investigation in progress and it had hit a brick wall.
There was no script, even, in spite of what's been reported in the press. There was a 'wish list', an ideal script that set out what the investigating team
hoped to be able to prove. But it was a catalogue of aspirations some distance beyond what could be supported by the evidence anyone had actually gathered. It's normal, incidentally, to have a wish list like that - something that everyone can work from that sets out what you'd need to be able to prove to get an investigation on air.
There was little more, in fact, than the rushes of one interview with the investigation's 'star' witness/victim, Karin Ward, and a clutch of telephone conversations with other women apparently echoing her allegations.
One was with
'Fiona' who went on to give evidence to the ITV expose.
'Fiona' claimed to have a letter from Surrey police setting out how they’d decided not to pursue her allegations against Savile because of his age and frailty. It would have been crucial corroboration but, in spite of several requests, she failed ever to produce it to the
Newsnight team.
The Mail on Sunday has now reported evidence that the letter is a "fake".
There were other question marks, too, over the 'corroborating' testimony. How it had been gathered and whether the women's connections via a social networking site had had any influence on their testimony, serious and credible though it seemed to be.
Denials
But there was more.
When the programme put the allegation to the Crown Prosecution Service - that Surrey police had dropped their investigation because of Savile's age and frailty - they denied it point blank.
The CPS said that one of their lawyers had reviewed the Surrey police
investigation and advised them to take no further action because of “lack of
evidence”.
They told Newsnight that:
"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."
There was nowhere for the investigation to go - certainly not in the time before the programme came off-air for its Christmas break.
But it was neither "pulled" nor "dropped". It was paused, shelved for sound editorial reasons and those alone. And without pressure, direct or subtle, from above.
Danger
The danger for the DG is that the Newsnight inquiry will establish exactly all of this ... and to the satisfaction of all but the most eye-swivelling.
Danger, too, that it will show exactly what Entwistle has insisted all along. That as Head of BBC Vision and responsible for the network planning to run the Savile tributes, he had only a vague awareness of the Newsnight inquiry. That he, quite understandably, kept at arms length from what was happening in another BBC division ... precisely to avoid allegations of interference.
That will turn the
Newsnight question on its head.
From ‘why did
Newsnight shelve its investigation?’ to ‘why didn’t the Head of
Vision shelve the tributes once he knew that a BBC programme – or indeed
any other part of the media – was finally investigating Savile?’
That's the real and present danger to the BBC and to its DG.
*Update: I'm grateful for a tip from Richard Fletcher, the editor of Telegraph.co.uk, pointing up an article in The Lawyer back in 2008 which reported that Savile began legal action against The Sun
after articles linking him with Haut de Garenne, the Jersey children's home.
According to The Lawyer, The Sun
carried a photograph of Savile allegedly visiting Haut de Garenne and followed it with "a series of articles. One asserted that Savile was unwilling to assist with the police investigation and another that he admitted having visited the home".
The Sun
also criticised Savile for being unprepared to “go some way to fixing it for the victims”.The Sun's
post-mortem tributes to Savile even more extraordinary.
