BBC 'to publish Saville evidence'

Thousands of pages of evidence gathered during an inquiry into Newsnight’s decision to drop its Jimmy Savile investigation are set to published today, the BBC has reported.

BBC 'to publish Saville evidence'

Thousands of pages of evidence gathered during an inquiry into Newsnight’s decision to drop its Jimmy Savile investigation are set to published today, the BBC has reported.

The Pollard Review concluded in December that the decision by the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme to shelve its probe into sexual abuse claims against the television star was “seriously flawed”.

The 3,000 pages of emails, interviews and submissions from BBC executives and journalists, including Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, are expected to be released online.

However some details from the inquiry, headed by former head of Sky News Nick Pollard, will not be released to the public.

The review was set up by the BBC last year to investigate if management failings were behind the decision to cancel the six week investigation into the child sex claims against Savile in December 2011, weeks before a Christmas tribute was broadcast.

A separate Newsnight investigation last summer led to Lord McAlpine being wrongly accused of child abuse.

Mr Pollard said in his findings that the decision to drop the story was "flawed" and "wrong" but not done to protect the Savile tribute programmes or for any improper reason.

The BBC’s management system “proved completely incapable of dealing” with the issues raised by the axing of the story, he added, and plunged the BBC into “chaos and confusion”, revealing a corporation where “leadership and organisation seemed to be in short supply”.

The review, which cost around £2m, painted a picture of a top-down organisation beset with rivalries and faction fighting.

BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten said at that the time of the report’s publication that all the evidence would be released, apart from some redactions for “legal reasons”.

Lord McAlpine, former Conservative Party treasurer, urged the BBC to publish all the witness statements.

He told the Daily Telegraph: “Of course they should publish them in full, the BBC is not the Secret Service.

“There’s no reason for holding back; what Jeremy Paxman said should be printed. It should be explained to people.”

The peer was mistakenly linked by the BBC Newsnight programme in an edition broadcast on November 2 last year to a paedophile ring which targeted children at a care home in Wrexham, England.

His name was then widely mentioned on the internet, including Twitter.

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