The Hindu : BBC staff vow to `pursue truth'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 01, 2004

International

International

BBC staff vow to `pursue truth'

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, JAN. 31. Andrew Gilligan, the BBC correspondent at the heart of the Kelly controversy, has resigned as the corporation remains in turmoil in the wake of the Hutton report which heavily criticised it for `defective' editorial controls.

It was Mr. Gilligan's report in May last year accusing the Government of "sexing up'' the threat from Iraq that triggered a chain of events culminating in the death of the defence scientist, David Kelly, who committed suicide after being named as the source of his story.

In a statement, Mr. Gilligan said he had already admitted that "some of my story was wrong'' but insisted that `most' of it was right. He denied that he had been sacked and said he was leaving at his "own initiative''. Criticising the Hutton report, he said the BBC had been a "victim of a grave injustice''.

"If Lord Hutton had fairly considered the evidence he heard, he would have concluded that most of my story was right,'' he said and stuck to his point that the Government had "sexed up'' the Iraq dossier.

Mr. Gilligan is the third casualty of the fallout of the Hutton report, which has already claimed the scalps of the BBC chairman, Gavyn Davies, and the director-general, Greg Dyke. The acting director-general, Mark Byford, is to lead an internal inquiry into the "Gilligan affair'' amid speculation that more heads are likely to roll. Richard Sambrook, director of news, and Kevin Marsh, editor of Radio 4's Today programme, which broadcast Mr. Gilligan's controversial report were believed to be particularly vulnerable.

In his first detailed comment, Mr. Byford said it had been a `turbulent' week for the BBC, having lost both its chairman and director-general which was "quite extraordinary for any organisation''. Even as he maintained that the BBC accepted the Hutton report, his predecessor, Mr. Dyke, attacked it and said he was preparing a personal response, which he would publish or broadcast in a few weeks.

He said everyone at the BBC was `shocked' by the report, which he believed, was too "black-and-white'' in that it laid all the blame on the BBC while exonerating the Government completely of any responsibility in the Kelly affair.

In an unprecedented move, 6,000 BBC employees issued a paid statement in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, supporting Mr. Dyke's `brave' defence of BBC's journalism and vowing to continue to "investigate the facts in pursuit of the truth''.

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