BBC Trust: tighten editorial controls

BBC Trust chairman Michael Lyons

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The BBC Trust has called on the BBC to toughen up its editorial controls and demanded that it offers an on-air apology to licence fee payers for the prank phone call scandal involving Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand.

In a wide-ranging statement issued this evening, Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons, condemned Brand and Ross' offensive comments describing the incident as a "deplorable intrusion" of privacy that fell "so far short of audience's legitimate expectations".
 
The Trust issued its statement as BBC Radio 2 chief Lesley Douglas became the latest victim of "Sachsgate". She tendered her resignation after more than 23 years at the corporation, saying that she took responsibility for the scandal and that the decision to leave was hers alone.

Last night Brand resigned from his job at the BBC but so far Ross has resisted public calls to quit. However, the BBC has suspended him for 12 weeks.

The Trust has offered a "full and unreserved" apology to Andrew Sachs' family and to licence fee payers, following the phone prank in which the duo phoned actor Andrew Sachs to tell him that Brand and Sachs' granddaughter Georgina Baillie Baillie had slept together. It has also demanded that director general Mark Thompson writes a personal letter of apology to both Sachs and Baillie.
 
In addition, the Trust's editorial standards committee will review the issues at a meeting next week and the governing body will make "editorial boundaries for high-risk broadcast material" into the central plank of its scheduled 2009 review of the BBC's editorial guidelines.

"The BBC has fallen way short of the public's overall expectations in this case, and it is essential that lessons are learned to avoid further lapses in the future," Lyons said.

"The Trust is dismayed both that the offensive comments broadcast on the Russell Brand Show on 18 October fell so far short of audiences' legitimate expectations, and by the deplorable intrusion in to the privacy of Mr Sachs and his granddaughter.

"The transmission of these comments via a BBC Radio programme represents an abuse of the privilege given to the BBC to broadcast to its audiences.

"On behalf of the BBC, the Trust offers a full and unreserved apology to Andrew Sachs, Georgina Baillie and the rest of his family. The Trust extends this apology to licence fee payers as a whole."