Convicted Criminals working for the BBC

Mark Reed made this Freedom of Information request to British Broadcasting Corporation This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

This request has been reported as needing administrator attention.

Dear British Broadcasting Corporation,
I would appreciate your early response to the questions below:

1. [extraneous material removed]

Question: Was the BBC aware of the serious criminal background of those it employed or is the BBC's investigative journalism department incapable of investigating its own staff?

Question: Do you think the BBC in general and BBC Panorama in particular are in any position to distort and sensationalise relatively minor criminal convictions of small numbers of individuals in other organisations?

2. [extraneous material removed]

Question: Considering the culture of drug abuse seemingly epidemic at senior and middle levels of BBC staff, what drug testing measures are employed by the Corporation?

Question: Has the BBC ever tested the toilet cubicles in its own buildings for evidence of cocaine use?

Question: Do you consider that the vital role that BBC staff play in imparting information to the British public makes it particularly important that BBC staff are not stupefied by narcotics whilst on duty?

Question: How many other BBC staff have drug-related criminal convictions?

Question: Does the BBC have a moral obligation to ensure high standards amongst staff, especially in the light that their salaries and expenses are paid directly by the public?

3. [extraneous material removed]

Question: Can you reveal the "fairly well-known names" within the BBC who offered to defend a man convicted of crimes involving the sexual abuse of a baby under 12 months old?

Question: Considering the access to children and vulnerable people that BBC staff enjoy, what checks do they make to insure the safety of the public? How many BBC staff are currently on the sex offenders register or have been convicted of crimes of a sexual nature?

4. [extraneous material removed]

Question: According to the BBC's charter it must represent the interests of licence fee payers and exercise rigorous stewardship of public money. Do you think that BBC Panorama complies with this regulation?

5. [extraneous material removed]

Question: Do you consider BBC Panorama to be complying with this?

6. [extraneous material removed]

Question: Can you tell me the amount of public money employed by the BBC in the production of the "Secret Agent"? Further to this, can you tell me how much public money was spent on the two failed court cases arising from the programme?

Question: Has anyone from the BBC ever apologised to Mr Griffin and his family?

Question: Has Panorama any plans to make future programmes dealing with the problems of sexual grooming by Muslim men of children from other communities, or about the links between the heroin epidemic and gangs from the Muslim community?

7. [extraneous material removed]

Question: Considering the BBC's duty towards impartiality and balance, can you explain why a BBC Panorama investigation has never been conducted into the subversive and violent activities of the far left?

Question: Further to this, how does BBC Panorama defend commissioning Gerry Gable and Nick Lowles of the communist front group "Searchlight" to assist with its programmes, particularly in view of the extensive criminal records of key figures within the Searchlight operation and their long-term associates?

8. BBC Panorama investigation into the BBC

Question: Considering the extensive evidence of violent and serious criminal convictions, drug abuse and sexual depravity, coupled with details of financial mismanagement and breaches of its charter, would Panorama consider an investigation into the BBC itself?

Question: Has such an investigative exposé ever been considered, and if not, why not?

9. BBC Panorama journalistic integrity

Question: The BBC has a legal obligation to operate within the terms of its charter. Failure to do so constitutes a criminal offence.

[extraneous material removed]

Thank you. M Reed

FOI Enquiries, British Broadcasting Corporation

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, as detailed in your email below. Your request was received on 6th October. We will deal with your request as promptly as possible, and at the latest within 20 working days. If you have any queries about your request, please contact us at the address below.

The reference number for your request is RFI20111226.

Kind regards,

The Information Policy & Compliance Team
BBC Freedom of Information
Room 2252, BBC White City
201 Wood Lane
London W12 7TS
www.bbc.co.uk/foi
Email: [email address]
Tel: 020 8008 2882
Fax: 020 8008 2398

show quoted sections

Peter Jones left an annotation ()

You're asking a lot of very good questions there, which the BBC are expert at dodging. They will not reply to any question where you have asked their opinion - the legislation doesn't oblige them to, and they're masters at hiding behind the law when it suits them.

Hope you manage to get something out of them.

FOI Enquiries, British Broadcasting Corporation

5 Attachments

Dear Mr Reed,

Please find attached the response to your request for information,
reference RFI20111226

<<RFI20111226 - Final Response.pdf>> <<RFI20111226 - Disclosure Document
1.pdf>> <<RFI20111226 - Disclosure Document 2.pdf>>
<<RFI201112126-Disclosure Document 3.pdf>> <<RFI20111226 - Disclosure
Document 4.pdf>>

Yours sincerely,

BBC Information Policy and Compliance
Room 2252, White City
201 Wood Lane
London W12 7TS, UK

Website: www.bbc.co.uk/foi
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Dear FOI Enquiries,
I thank you for your response.
As was suggested by another poster, most of the answers to the questions have been conveniantly avoided, however this was no more than was expected so I will assume this is as far as this subject is able to go. I would also assume that you may now have some ideas for future panorama programs using your journalists, I also look forward to seeing programs about the far left organisations such as the UAF and MAC rather than the usual outdated piffle about the BNP which wether the bbc likes it or not is a genuine legally recognised political party. I also understand that the national union for journalists also forbids any positive reporting about the BNP surely this cannot be right, I was under the impression that the BBC are supposed to show no bias towards any political party

Yours sincerely,

Mark Reed

Ben left an annotation ()

Congratulations M Reed in raising these points. The BBC in Northern Ireland are lap dogs to the Government. I suspect it is the same over in London. You should ask the BBC about Hollie Greig.

Mark Reed left an annotation ()

hello there Ben, I think the BNP of which I am a member have already tried to publicise some of the facts of the problems of abuse being covered up, not sure if the case you mention is one of the many, I urge any one who reads this to google "The Labour 25" I'am sure most people will be shocked by what they read and will wonder why there has been so little publicity by the mass media concerning all involved

Richard Taylor left an annotation ()

Google has notified us that due to a request under data protection law in Europe, Google will no-longer be listing this request in search results for certain queries for names or other personal identifiers. Google has informed us that this only affects search results offered by European versions of Google.

When contacting us to tell us about this Google noted the request will still appear in the results for other searches. Google didn't disclose which searches this request will no-longer appear in response to, and pointed out that in many cases affected queries don’t relate to the name of any person mentioned prominently on the page.

Google has invited us to make representations to them if we want to make the case for reversing their decision. If you think there is a strong public interest case for showing this request in search results from which it is currently omitted please feel free to get in touch with us and/or Google, making the case and providing evidence to support it. If we consider it appropriate we may pass the substance of what you say to Google.

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Richard - WhatDoTheyKnow.com volunteer