The Pollard Review
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THE POLLARD REVIEW: REPORT DATED 18 DECEMBER 2012 Reed Smith THE POLLARD REPORT – CONTENTS PART DESCRIPTION PAGE 1 Introduction 2 1 Chapter 1 The Review Process 2 x My Terms of Reference 2 x My Approach 2 x Documentation 3 x Statements 6 x The Preparation of the Report 7 x Acknowledgments 7 1 Chapter 2 The Report 8 x The Approach 8 x Appendices 8 x Timeline 9 x List of Relevant Individuals 9 x The Structure of the BBC 9 x The Managed Risk Programmes List 14 x Editorial Guidelines 20 x Exhibits A-D 2 Summary of Findings, Conclusions and 22-42 Recommendations 3 The Newsnight Investigation and the Decision to 43-101 Discontinue it 4 The Tribute Programmes 102-115 5 Events between December 2011 and September 116-134 2012 6 The BBC’s Blog and Its Amendment 135-185 - 1 - PART ONE – INTRODUCTION 1. In this part, I provide background information on the Review, set out the approach which I have adopted and detail the various steps that I have taken to produce my Report. I also explain how my Report is structured and set out, in Chapter 2, certain preliminary and background matters. In part 2, I set out a summary of my key findings and recommendations. Particular detailed sections of my report are at parts 3 – 6. CHAPTER 1 – THE REVIEW PROCESS My Terms of Reference 2. On 16 October 2012, I accepted the role of Chair of an independent Review commissioned by the BBC into the management by the BBC of a Newsnight investigation relating to allegations of sexual abuse of children by Jimmy Savile. The Terms of Reference for my Review were set out on 16 October 2012 and were clarified on 1 November 2012. A copy of those Terms (as clarified) is at Appendix 1. My Approach 3. The Review has been completed in nine weeks. The process has been challenging. The Review has received a large number of written statements and answers to written questions and has received, and considered, over 10,000 documents. Documents have been received by the Review from the BBC as recently as 16 December 2012, the day before this Report. 4. Immediately upon my acceptance of the role of Chair, I instructed Reed Smith LLP to advise me as solicitors and secretariat to my Review. It quickly became clear to me that the challenging timetable, the extent of documentation to be considered and the seriousness of the issues raised by the Review meant that I should instruct a barrister team, in particular to assist during the interview process. Finally, a significant amount of press interest meant that I needed - 2 - assistance in dealing with media enquiries and I instructed a PR agency to assist me. 5. I have at all times been aware that the costs of my Review are being met by the BBC and there has been close co-ordination on costs between Reed Smith and the BBC Legal Department. Documentation 6. I summarise in this section the process by which documentation was obtained for the Review. As I say above, the Review has received over 10,000 documents. 7. The first step taken by the Review team was to understand the BBC’s organisational structure, reporting lines and its editorial policies, and to collect and consider press articles concerning the subject matter of the Review, of which there were very many. Files of emails already provided to the BBC’s Legal Department by some of the main witnesses were sent to Reed Smith towards the end of October and these were reviewed and analysed. Document Returns 8. From those documents, a list of individuals identified as potentially relevant to the issues being investigated was put together. That list of recipients was kept under review and names were added to it as the Review progressed. Each identified individual was sent a ‘Document Return’ letter in which they were requested to undertake thorough searches of all documents (whether in hard copy or electronic format) which contained information relating to the matters within my Terms of Reference, and to confirm that those searches had been carried out.1 Recipients of Document Returns were also asked to identify any 1 Document Return requests were sent to Sara Beck, Helen Boaden, Neil Breakwell, Don Cameron, Jessica Cecil, Danny Cohen, Helen Deller, Phil Dolling, Clive Edwards, George Entwistle, Paddy Feeny, Liz Gibbons, Tom Giles, Janice Hadlow, James Hardy, Stephanie Harris, Caroline Hawley, Peter Horrocks, Meirion Jones, David Jordan, Roger Law, Mark Linsey, Liz MacKean, Ken MacQuarrie, Jo Mathys , Stephen Mitchell, Roger Mosey, Paul Mylrea, Lord Patten, Julian Payne, Jeremy Paxman, Peter Rippon, Karen Rosine, Emma Swain, Mark Thompson, Helen Weaver and Jan Younghusband. - 3 - documents which they did have but could no longer locate. All individuals who were sent Document Returns completed them. 9. The two alternative versions of the Document Return are attached at Appendix 2. Version 1 was sent where I considered electronic searching (which I address in the next section) to be necessary in respect of that individual because of an individual’s importance or potential importance to my Review (or in a few instances the relevant person was no longer working at the BBC, in which case electronic searches were necessary given that they no longer had access to BBC systems). Version 2 was sent where electronic searches were not considered necessary at the outset (but in some cases they were later carried out as appropriate). 10. Documents located as a result of the searches certified in Document Returns were provided to the BBC’s Legal Department, so that redactions could be made on two bases: (i) legal professional privilege and (ii) human rights grounds (for example, the need to protect journalistic sources). Once reviewed by the BBC’s Legal Department for those purposes, the documents were provided to Reed Smith, with redactions having been made. 11. The BBC Executive’s solicitors, Field Fisher Waterhouse, have provided written certification that each of the files of documents provided to us by the BBC which contain redactions have been reviewed by them and that all redactions been made appropriately on one of the two bases set out above.2 12. The documents were collated into chronological bundles by Reed Smith (with duplicates removed), and these bundles, which amounted by the end of the process to 18 lever arch files, were used and referred to at the witness interviews. 2 Documents produced by Lord Patten were reviewed by the BBC Trust’s lawyer with redactions made on the grounds of legal professional privilege, and provided to Reed Smith by the Trust directly. The appropriateness of claims to privilege in documents relating to Panorama on 22 October 2012 produced by Tom Giles were certified by an external barrister. - 4 - Archive Searching 13. So as to verify the completeness of the documentary collection process outlined above, the BBC agreed to undertake electronic searches across a number of individual email accounts (selected by Reed Smith) for the period from 29 October 2011 (the date Savile died) to 30 October 2012, using keyword searches against those emails accounts.3 14. This was a substantial, time consuming and (I understand) costly process, involving the restoration of archived email accounts and back-up tapes. This was managed by a third party IT services provider engaged by the BBC. It was, however, a process which was clearly necessary. 15. The output from those keyword searches amounted to approximately 30,000 documents, which were reviewed by Field Fisher Waterhouse and the BBC for relevance and material requiring redaction for privilege or human rights issues. Approximately 10,000 relevant documents were passed to Reed Smith to review as a result of that process (and additional pertinent documents were inserted into the chronological interview bundles). Again, Field Fisher Waterhouse has certified that all of the redactions made to those documents have been made appropriately on one of the two bases set out above. 16. Reed Smith chose and then checked a 10% sample of those documents not provided to the Review because they were considered by the BBC and Field Fisher to be irrelevant. There were no examples found of documents wrongly categorised as irrelevant. 17. I should also mention that the BBC accommodated requests made for sight of legally privileged material which I considered may have been relevant for the purposes of understanding the underlying facts. I wanted to check whether I was missing some of the story by not seeing privileged material. Some documents were as a result released by the BBC to me on the basis that they 3 The individuals selected were Helen Boaden, Helen Deller, George Entwistle, Meirion Jones, David Jordan, Mark Linsey, Liz MacKean, Stephen Mitchell, Peter Rippon, Mark Thompson, Danny Cohen, Phil Dolling, Liz Gibbons, Janice Hadlow, Hannah Livingston, Kate Mordaunt, Shaminder Nahal, Emma Swain, Nick Vaughan-Barratt and Jan Younghusband. - 5 - remained privileged and confidential and that their release was made only to a limited number of recipients within the Review team for the limited purpose of checking whether I was missing documentary material important to my terms of reference. Statements 18. Reed Smith sent letters to 32 potential interviewees, putting those interviewees on notice of a potential request for interview and asking each potential interviewee to provide a timeline of their involvement in relevant events. An example of the letter is at Appendix 3. As a consequence of this letter, the Review received 21 timelines and/or witness statements.4 The Review received a small number of unsolicited statements from other individuals.5 A number of statements are included in Appendix 11.