Afternoon summary
The scandal surrounding allegations levelled against an unnamed BBC presenter continues to rumble on as the corporation’s director general took questions on the furore.
Here are the key developments from the day so far:
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the allegations were “shocking and concerning” and the government is “reassured the process (the BBC) are taking is rigorous and will be swift”.
The work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, said he would not use parliamentary privilege to identify the BBC presenter at the centre of the scandal in an apparent move to discourage fellow MPs from taking that decision.
The press accountability campaign group, Hacked Off, said the Sun newspaper had questions to answer over its handling of the story after it emerged the young person at the heart of the controversy refuted its reporting of the matter.
The BBC was asked to pause its investigation into allegations one of its presenters paid a teenager for explicit images “while the police scope future work” following a meeting with the Metropolitan police, the corporation has said.
The BBC published an updated timeline of events that revealed the corporation attempted to contact the complainant – reportedly the young person’s mother and stepfather – twice but received no response.
Tim Davie, the director general, said he had not spoken to the presenter involved as he revealed the allegations were initially considered to be “very serious” but not criminal when the corporation was first approached in May.
Updated
Authorities should be “given time” to investigate the allegations surrounding a BBC presenter, Downing Street has said.
Pressed on the potential use of parliamentary privilege by MPs to name the suspended star, the prime minister’s official spokesperson told reporters:
Obviously we support freedom of speech, but this is a sensitive issue which is being looked at carefully, and the relevant authorities need to be given the appropriate time to carry out that work.
Asked about the Tory deputy chair, Lee Anderson, calling the BBC a “safe haven for perverts”, the spokesperson said:
Obviously the BBC is a vital institution, much cherished by the British public and continues to do vital important work.
And that’s why, as ministers have made clear, it’s important that they establish the facts and act appropriately in this case.
The spokesperson denied Sunak was trying to avoid finding out who the suspended BBC presenter is, in order to evade questions.
When this was put to the spokesperson, he told reporters:
I wouldn’t characterise it like that. I mean, the prime minister is at the Nato summit and yesterday had the president of the United States here, so obviously his time is taken up with those issues. It’s for the BBC and others to look into this one.
Updated
Police assessment led by specialist crime command – Scotland Yard
The Metropolitan police have issued an updated statement on their involvement with the allegations levelled at the BBC presenter.
It said:
We have asked the BBC to pause its own investigation while we continue our assessment to establish whether there is evidence of a criminal offence being committed.
The assessment is being led by detectives from the Met’s specialist crime command and follows a virtual meeting with representatives from the BBC on the morning of Monday, 10 July.
There remains no police investigation at this time.
Updated
The Metropolitan police have asked the BBC to pause its inquiries into a suspended male presenter, while specialist officers decide if there is any justification for a criminal investigation, Jim Waterson reports.
The BBC director general, Tim Davie, said the Met had taken control of the inquiry, although the police were still at the “scoping” stage of their inquiries and they may decide they was no criminal case to answer.
Davie made the announcement as he took questions from journalists at the launch of the BBC’s annual report. The off-camera event was scheduled long before one of the broadcaster’s leading male presenters was suspended following allegations in the Sun he spent £35,000 buying explicit images from a young person.
In other developments:
The BBC published its own timeline of events leading up to the presenter’s suspension, which claimed a member of the young person’s family initially tried to make a complaint via a physical BBC office in May – and later failed to return phone calls from BBC investigators.
Davie said the initial complaint was “very serious but not criminal”, unlike the claims put to the BBC by the Sun last week that the young person may have been 17 when contact began.
The director general confirmed the presenter was informed of the allegations against him only last week, when the Sun contacted the BBC.
The director general said the BBC had a “duty of care” to the suspended presenter, suggested they were providing him with support, and declined to comment on suggestions that blackmail may have been involved.
The young person at the heart of the story has said the Sun’s claims of illegal behaviour are “rubbish”.
The BBC published its annual list of its highest-earning stars.
Read the full article here:
Tim Davie has 'questions about what can be learned from whole process'
Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, has praised the corporate investigation team at the BBC, claiming they are “outstanding”, while defending his own actions in “calmly and judiciously” navigating through what he claimed was a complex situation.
In an interview by Sarah Montague on BBC Radio 4, he said “corporate investigations looked at the log, a summary of the call, of 29 minutes duration. That summary then goes to the corporate investigations team.” He said they judged it to be a serious allegation.
On the gap between the initial contact and the presenter being approached over the allegation, he defended the delay, saying it would not be right to put every unverified complaint directly to every presenter immediately without trying to validate it.
Asked if only making two attempts to contact the family – once by email and once by phone – was an appropriate effort on behalf of the corporation, Davie said he had questions about what could be learned from the whole process. He told Montague one was “Do we raise the red flags quick enough?”, and said “there may well be some learnings from this case on process and protocol”.
In terms of processing the complaint, and whether it should have been done faster, he said: “I understand the timetable and it followed the process. The process was run and we need to take stock.”
Earlier today Davie said he had asked Leigh Tavaziva, the BBC group chief operating officer, to assess whether its protocols and procedures were appropriate.
He noted that the case had been kept open and not dismissed prior to the Sun going public with its reporting, which has now been questioned by one of the individuals concerned.
He said the BBC had needed to get right the “balance between privacy, duty of care, and a very serious allegation” and that it had “excellent processes to protect people”.
On the overall impact of the incident, he said: “The BBC is often in the midst of quite painful and difficult affairs and storms, and these are clearly damaging to the BBC. And it’s not a good thing for the BBC.”
He said what he cared about as director general was that the BBC newsroom was free to report on the crisis fairly and freely, and that as an organisation it was doing the right thing and “being seen to do the right thing”.
Updated
Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, is being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 right now. We will bring you the key lines.
Updated
BBC director general has not spoken to the presenter involved
Is blackmail involved? Are there any other complaints against the presenter?
Davie said:
I shouldn’t be going there. It’s appropriate, with the privacy concerns, to let the investigation be assessed and let the police do their work. It was clearly a serious complaint and the corporate investigations team wanted to take it further.
Having said that, based on what they say, they did not believe it included an allegation of criminality.
I don’t want to go any further than that in terms of privacy and duty of care concerns. We have a highly experienced corporate investigations team who look at the evidence they’ve got.
They are paused and we have not been given a timescale.
Have you personally spoken to the presenter?
Davie said:
I haven’t.
Updated
Did the presenter offer to resign?
Davie said:
I wouldn’t comment on a private conversation.
What support is being offered?
Davie said:
Duty of care is a very significant factor in this if you look at the enormity of the coverage. Duty of care in these type of affairs is critical.
That goes beyond the people at the centre of the drama but also the people affected by that. I can’t give you specific individuals’ duty of care packages.
But the BBC is, I think, excellent at making sure we are offering the right support. It is one of the highest priorities as we move this through this affair.
Updated
Has the BBC asked to see the presenter’s phone?
Davie said:
We talked to the presenter but we have not gone beyond that. It is then appropriate to discuss with the police and get some guidance from them. It’s not right for me to comment on the specifics of any police processes or requests at this point.
Why didn’t the initial allegation in May get put to the presenter?
Davie said:
We must balance duty of care with taking any complaint seriously. In the last six months about 250 cases go to that team.
I think it’s right they should make contact with the individual who made the initial allegation and get some verification and talk to that person and understand what they’re dealing with before they raise that with an individual.
Working through the consequences of going another way is interesting, it would be difficult. It was an open case. It was not closed.
Updated
BBC director general first aware of allegations five days ago
When did the director general and other top executives learn about the allegations?
Davie said:
Myself and the executive committee were made aware on the 6 July and were not told before that.
Obviously the BBC gets a number of things coming in to its corporate investigations team. If they are serious in nature they can either put to a serious case team.
The corporate investigations team assess what goes into that bucket. Some verification of claims is appropriate. They do some due diligence on what is being alleged.
You could be in a situation where anyone could ring anything in and put it to presenters. Unfortunately in this process there was no response which left the case to be left open. We couldn’t get more information, that’s why it wasn’t confirmed.
Updated
First complaint to BBC 'very serious' but not criminal, says Davie
Tim Davie took questions from journalists on the presenter cash-for-pictures scandal during his annual report briefing. We’ll bring you the highlights here from my colleague, media editor Jim Waterson.
Will the incident damage trust in the BBC?
Davie said:
Any affair of this nature is serious in terms of the BBC’s reputation. Trust is absolutely fundamental to the BBC. It is too early to say how this impacts the BBC’s reputation in terms of trust.
We constantly need to be seen to be navigating complex fast-moving issues confidently and calmly.
When did the presenter learn about the allegations against them?
Davie said:
The presenter was first talked to on the 6 July, the day that the Sun allegations came into the BBC. Before that, there was a process of trying to verify the serious complaint we had into our audiences services team.
The process is that we did receive a call on 19 May. That was taken by the audience services team, who then make a summary call for the investigations team.
On the basis of the information they had at that point, it did not involve an allegation of criminality but it was nonetheless very serious. But their assessment was it did not include an allegation of criminality. When the Sun made new allegations on the 6 July they were different to the matters being considered by BBC corporate investigations and clearly related to potential criminal activity.
Updated
Allegations present 'a complex and difficult situation', says BBC director general
At the BBC annual report press briefing, director general Tim Davie made a statement addressing the unfolding situation concerning the allegations against the BBC presenter.
He said:
This is clearly a complex and difficult situation where we need to manage a number of factors – properly responding to serious allegations, sensitively managing duty of care issues, appropriately respecting the privacy of individuals and justified public interest.
We do believe we are navigating these responsibly and judicially but we recognise it’s not easy to do so.
The BBC corporate investigations team had a meeting with the police in relation to the information provided to the BBC by the Sun newspaper on Thursday 6 July, Davie said.
He went on:
As a result of this the BBC has been asked to pause its own investigation into the allegations while they scope future work. We will pass any material that we have to them.
We know that questions have been asked how this case was initially managed and the timeline of events, so today we have published an update that sets out key dates and further detail.
The BBC has processes and protocols for receiving information and managing allegations when they are made,
We always take these matters seriously and seek to manage them with care.
The events of recent days have shown how complex and challenging these kinds of cases can be and how vital it is they are handled with the upmost diligence.
That is why it is important that we ensure these processes are robust and working appropriately.
Davie said the corporation’s chief operating officer, Leigh Tavaziva, will oversee a review into current protocols and procedures for “red flagging” complaints within the organisation.
Updated
Updated timeline published by BBC
The BBC has published an update that sets out key dates and some additional information that it is currently able to share:
• On 18 May, the complainant (a family member) attended a BBC building, where they sought to make a complaint about the behaviour of a BBC presenter.
• On 19 May, the complainant contacted BBC Audience Services; the details of this contact were referred to the BBC’s Corporate Investigations Team.
• On 19 May, the BBC’s Corporate Investigations Team assessed the information contained in the complaint provided from Audience Services. The assessment made was that on the basis of the information provided it did not include an allegation of criminality, but nonetheless merited further investigation.
• On 19 May, the BBC’s Corporate Investigations Team emailed the complainant stating how seriously the BBC takes the issue and seeking additional information to verify the claims being made; there was no response to this contact.
• On 19 May, checks were also made to verify the identity of the complainant. This is a standard procedure to confirm that the complainant is the person they say they are.
• On 6 June, having received no response to the email referenced above, a phone call was made to the mobile number provided by the complainant by the BBC’s Corporate Investigations Team; this call did not connect.
• Following these attempts to make contact with the complainant, the Corporate Investigations Team were due to return to the matter in the coming weeks. No additional attempts to contact the complainant were made after 6 June, however the case remained open throughout.
• On 6 July, the Sun newspaper informed the BBC via the Corporate Press Office of allegations concerning a BBC presenter; it became clear that the source of the claims was from the same family as approached the BBC on 18 and 19 May. This was the first time that the director general or any executive directors at the BBC were aware of the case.
• The claims made by the Sun contained new allegations, that were different to the matters being considered by BBC Corporate Investigations.
• On 6 July, the BBC initiated an incident management group to lead the response to this case, involving senior BBC executives including the director general. The acting chairman was updated, and the board was regularly updated in the coming days.
• On 6 July, a senior manager held the first conversation on this matter with the presenter concerned, to make him aware of the claims being outlined by the Sun. It was agreed that the presenter would not be on air while this matter was being considered.
• On 7 July, following the Sun’s contact, the BBC’s Corporate Investigations team contacted the complainant again, who was in touch with the BBC’s investigators.
• On 7 July, the BBC’s Serious Case Management Framework (SCMF) was initiated and the investigation being undertaken by the Corporate Investigations Team was brought into the SCMF, which is chaired by a human resources director.
• On 7 July the BBC also made contact with the police with regard to this matter.
• On 8 July and on 9 July the complainant sent the BBC some materials related to the complaint.
• On 9 July the BBC issued an update to staff and the media; the BBC also confirmed that it had suspended the presenter.
• On 10 July the BBC met with the police, to report the matter and discuss how to progress the investigation. The police have requested that the BBC pause its investigations into the allegations while they scope future work.
Updated
BBC pauses inquiry while police look into allegations - BBC
The BBC has been asked to pause its investigation into allegations one of its presenters paid a teenager for explicit images “while the police scope future work” following a meeting with the Metropolitan Police, the corporation has said.
The press accountability campaign group, Hacked Off, has waded into the BBC presenter scandal, calling for the Sun to answer questions over its handling of the story.
Its comments come in the wake of a statement made by a lawyer representing the young person at the heart of the controversy, that alleged the mother and the newspaper had made false claims.
The lawyer said: “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing inappropriate or unlawful has taken place between our client and the BBC personality and the allegations reported in the Sun newspaper are rubbish.”
Nathan Sparkes, the chief executive of Hacked Off, said:
If the claims of this young person’s lawyer are true, they indicate that the Sun failed to follow even the most basic journalistic standards in pursuit of this story. They must explain what representations they had from the person involved and why, if they did indeed receive objections, they disregarded them.
They have used the lives of this young person, and BBC presenter, to further their relentless anti-BBC agenda.
Newspapers like the Sun are able to publish these reckless attacks, which do irreparable damage to people’s lives, with impunity because they remain outside of any independent form of regulation. There remains no evidence that Ipso, the Sun’s complaints handler which is controlled by the industry, has lifted a finger to investigate the Sun in relation to their conduct on this story.
If the lawyer’s claims are true, then the Sun should issue a direct apology to the BBC for its coverage over the last few days.
On Monday, a spokesperson for the Sun said: “We have reported a story about two very concerned parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and the welfare of their child. Their complaint was not acted upon by the BBC. We have seen evidence that supports their concerns. It’s now for the BBC to properly investigate.”
The young person’s parents on Monday night said they “stand by” the claims.
Sources in the Sun newsroom suggested there was growing nervousness about the newspaper’s handling of the story, which has dominated the headlines for several days, led to the suspension of the BBC presenter, and forced multiple on-air stars to publicly deny they have been suspended.
Updated
Mel Stride says he will not use parliamentary privilege to identify BBC presenter at centre of row
The cabinet minister Mel Stride also made comments this morning about the use of parliamentary privilege.
The work and pensions secretary said he would not use parliamentary privilege to identify the BBC presenter at the centre of a scandal in an apparent move to discourage fellow MPs from taking that decision.
Asked on Sky News if he would use parliamentary privilege – in effect a form of legal immunity that grants MPs protection in the House of Commons – to name the presenter involved, as some of his colleagues have suggested they might, Stride said he would not. He said:
I can only speak for myself. I would personally certainly not be doing that.
That is a privilege that should be used very sparingly and with great thought.
Read more here:
Updated
A bit more from Sunak in Lithuania. The PM declined to comment on reports some MPs could be considering naming the presenter at the heart of the scandal under the protection of parliamentary privilege. He told reporters:
We have an existing set of laws that govern free speech and privacy.
I think it’s important that the BBC conducts this investigation quickly and rigorously given the concerning and serious nature of the allegations.
He said the government “is confident the BBC is investigating this both rigorously and rapidly” and that this is “the right course of action”.
Updated
Entirely coincidentally, today is the release of the BBC’s annual report, where the corporation sets out its performance over the last year and publishes enormous amounts of data on its finances, future plans, and how it is performing. It’s also one of the only occasions where the BBC’s top executives – including director general Tim Davie – subject themselves to questions from the media.
The release of the report was planned long before the BBC was thrown into crisis by anonymous allegations against a senior presenter, which has led to his suspension.
Davie and the interim chair, Dame Elan Closs Stephens, who is making her first public appearance in the role, are expected to answer questions and provide an update on the investigation into the presenter. We will be able to report what they said at midday.
Updated
Allegations 'shocking and concerning' – PM
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said he was alarmed by reports that a BBC presenter may have paid thousands for explicit pictures from a young person – but said that ministers had been reassured by the corporation that its investigation into the case would be quick.
“They were shocking and concerning allegations,” the prime minister said on his way to the Nato summit. “The culture secretary spoke to the director general on Sunday and is reassured the process they are taking is rigorous and will be swift. We’ve had those reassurances and that’s the right thing to do.”
It was important for those investigating the situation, such as the BBC and the police, to be allowed to reach a conclusion, he said.
The prime minister also added he had not been told by his aides the identity of the presenter, who has been widely named online.
Updated
The work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, was on duty as the face for the government in media rounds and was asked questions about the scandal at the BBC.
The cabinet minister urged people to “resist … the urge to opine on” the allegations that a BBC presenter paid a teenager for sexually explicit images, and about how the allegations are being dealt with.
He told Sky News:
Once it’s all over and concluded, I think that is most certainly the time to be looking at whether things were done correctly or not.
But at the moment, it seems to me this is a highly fluid, unknown situation and we should give the BBC a bit of space.
It’s really important that all of us resist, to the extent that we can, the urge to opine on what was right, or what was outrageous or wrong, until we know all the facts.
Asked about the BBC’s handling of the situation, he said:
We don’t know enough of the facts to be able to start pointing too many fingers yet at the process.
I think we have to wait till this has played out as quickly and effectively as possible, and that’s what the secretary of state (for digital, culture, media and sport) has been pushing for. And then we can start to make those judgments.
Updated
Morning summary
Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of developments in the unfolding scandal at the BBC involving an unnamed presenter who has been accused of paying tens of thousands of pounds for explicit images from a young person.
The broadcaster has suspended a male member of staff after the Sun newspaper reported claims from the parents of a young person that the presenter had paid around £35,000 over three years for explicit images.
The scandal took another twist on Monday night after a lawyer representing the young person at the centre of the controversy said nothing inappropriate or unlawful happened, calling the reporting “rubbish”.
The Met police have said at this time there would be no criminal investigation into the allegations.
However, the parents of the young person involved, who is said to be 20 now, stand by the account they gave to the Sun.
Today will be a busy day for the BBC, a day of enormous pressure, as the corporation publishes its annual report in the midst of the controversy.
The BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, is expected to talk to the media, which was previously scheduled due to the release of the report, and is likely to bombarded with questions over the corporation’s handling of the controversy.
Updated
