BBC bosses yesterday contradicted a police chief’s claims about their deal over a raid on Sir Cliff Richard’s home, revealing that the broadcaster was even provided with an aerial shot of the property in advance.
Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC’s director-general, told MPs that South Yorkshire police gave the BBC the full story of the abuse investigation and “had made no attempt to stop us running the story”.
He rejected claims, made by the Chief Constable David Crompton, that the force had needed to co-operate with the BBC or it would run the story and potentially damage the investigation.
Lord Hall said: “Had the chief constable come to a news editor, the head of news gathering, James Harding [director of news and current affairs] or myself and said to us, ‘If you run this story you will hamper this investigation’, we would not have run the story.”
The operation has been mired in controversy after news crews captured the search of Sir Cliff’s property, near Ascot in Berkshire last month.
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Sir Cliff, 73, has described an allegation of sexual abuse on a boy under 16 at an evangelical rally in 1985 as “completely false”.
Mr Crompton told the home affairs select committee that the BBC had extorted the force into the deal because its journalist “came to us knowing everything that we knew”.
He said: “The BBC made it clear to my staff they were in position to publish. Blackmail is [a] very strong word. It puts us in a very difficult position.”
Lord Hall and fellow executives denied these allegations. The force also claimed it gave only a “broad description” of Sir Cliff’s property to the BBC but Jonathan Munro, head of news gathering, revealed that it had sent journalists an aerial photograph of the penthouse a day before the raid.
Mr Munro added that the BBC were told which gate police would enter, and when.
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Mr Crompton said: “I absolutely concede that the coverage was disproportionate and made our actions look heavy-handed and intrusive and I do regret that”. Keith Vaz, head of the committee, accused the force of “sheer incompetence” but said the BBC behaved “perfectly properly”.
Gideon Benaim, Sir Cliff’s solicitor, said whilst there is an on-going police investigation he did not wish his client to “become embroiled in the wider issues”.