Two more BBC executives step aside amid ‘ghastly mess’

JOHN F BURNS & ALAN COWELL

The crisis over the BBC's reporting of a decades-old sexual abuse scandal deepened on Monday as two more senior executives withdrew temporarily from their jobs following the resignation of the corporation's director-general in what the chairman of its supervisory trust called a "ghastly mess".

The BBC's website said its director of news, Helen Boaden, and her deputy, Stephen Mitchell, had "stepped aside", the latest moves since a flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, wrongly implicated a former Conservative Party politician, Alistair McAlpine, in accusations of sexual abuse at a children's home in North Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.

A separate internal inquiry is investigating an earlier incident one year ago when Newsnight cancelled a programme concerning allegations of sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile, a longtime BBC television host who died last year at age 84.

But even as the two executives were reported to be stepping aside, the BBC management seemed to be trying to minimize the impact of the moves, saying it wanted "to make it absolutely clear that neither Helen Boaden nor Stephen Mitchell had anything at all to do with the failed Newsnight investigation into Lord McAlpine".

"Whilst recognizing this, the BBC also believes there is a lack of clarity in the lines of command and control in BBC News" due to the Savile inquiry, being conducted by Nick Pollard, a former head of rival Sky News.

"In the circumstances, Helen and Stephen will be stepping aside from their normal roles until the Pollard review reports and they expect to then return to their positions," the BBC said. The BBC said its head of news gathering, Fran Unsworth, and Ceri Thomas, editor of the Today current affairs radio programme, are to fill in for the executives who stepped aside.

Chris Patten, chairman of BBC Trust Sunday said the organization was in a "ghastly mess" as a result of its bungled coverage of the sexual abuse scandal and was in need of a fundamental shake-up.

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