The BBC acted “perfectly properly” in its dealings with South Yorkshire police over coverage of the raid on Cliff Richard’s home, according to the Commons home affairs select committee chairman.
Keith Vaz, summing up at the end of a Tuesday afternoon hearing on how the BBC got the story and was able to cover the raid as it happened, said he and his select committee colleagues thought the corporation had “acted perfectly properly in respect of this matter”.
Earlier, Vaz had told South Yorkshire police chief constable David Crompton that his force had shown “gross lack of competence” in its dealings with the BBC.
Vaz, the Labour MP, was speaking after Crompton admitted that the BBC reporter pursuing the story found out about the planned raid from the South Yorkshire force.
Crompton was also questioned about why his force decided to do a deal with the BBC journalist, Dan Johnson, and why it had not sought to talk to more senior figures at the corporation to stop the story running.
Tony Hall, the BBC director general, appeared before committee after Crompton and said that if the police had asked the corporation not to run the story, it would have obliged.
“Had the chief constable come to a news editor, head of news gathering, James Harding, director of news or myself and said to us ‘if you run this story you will hamper this investigation, it would be damaging to this investigation’ we would not have run the story,” Hall said.
“I want you to be absolutely clear about that. We would not have run the story.”
Hall added that Johnson went to South Yorkshire police to discuss “a number of stories”and had a tip-off from a source which he will not reveal referring to Cliff Richard.
There was “no hint in any of that of us knowing any more than the name Cliff Richard”, the rest was volunteered. “The reporter didn’t have a story until he went to South Yorkshire police, who then gave him a story,” Hall said.
The broadcaster’s head of newsgathering, Jonathan Munro, said that Johnson was even sent an aerial shot of the apartment block where Richard has a property to help the journalist identify the right location.
He said that the reporter denied having said anything about Operation Yewtree, or giving “any clue” as to the source of the original tip off, and had kept notes of his meeting with South Yorkshire police before the raid.
“Dan Johnson totally denies mentioning Yewtree by name or the Metropolitan Police force or indeed any other clue as to the identity of the source for the original story,” Munro added.
“I wasn’t in that meeting with South Yorkshire police but I believe him to he an honest and professional journalist and he completely denies this.”
Asked if sending a helicopter above Richard’s residence to film the raid on 14 August was “OTT”, Hall said: “The reporter was told by South Yorkshire police it would be difficult to get good shots from the ground, the operational decision was then taken to use a helicopter.”
He added: “Looking at the output was it used disproportionately, no. Was it, as some people say, running the search live, we weren’t. The only live shots were run ... at 4.30pm when the cars came out.”
He added: “It was a proper story for us to cover, in the right matter, proportionately, which I think is what we did. I wasn’t surprised the police didn’t ask us not to broadcast the story.”
