BBC Editor in Dock After Naming Rotherham Rape Victim

The BBC Asian Network (whatever that is) head of news has gone on trial after a programme he was in charge of broadcast the name of a sex abuse victim.

BBC Asian Network reporter Rickin Majithia revealed the real name of the complainant in a rape trial during a live report of a case involving the Rotherham grooming scandal.

Majithia's line manager, head of news Arif Ansari, pictured above, denies breaching section 1 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992, which entitles all complainants of sexual offences to lifelong anonymity. Ansari has been charged with the offence because he had full editorial responsibility for the content broadcast that day.

District Judge Naomi Redhouse, sitting at Sheffield Magistrates' Court, heard that Ansari had checked and approved the offending content, which including the victim's real name, prior to its broadcast on 6th February 2018. Majithia mistakenly read out the victim's real name from the checked script thinking it was a pseudonym.

Giving evidence, Majithia said he had not covered a trial before and had not even sat in a Crown Court case.

The reporter told the court he found out about the mistake 10 minutes after the name was read out when a social worker called him.

He drafted a letter of apology to the victim, but told the court he was blocked from sending it by BBC bosses.

Although he had been at the BBC for nine years, he had only been a reporter for 12 months. Majithia said the mistake would be something he will regret for the "rest of his life".

The prosecution said it accepted Ansari did not know or suspect the victim's real name was in the script but said he had good reason to suspect its use might be wrong because Majithia was inexperienced.

Prosecutors also described Majithia as "very driven and a bit of a loose cannon", who had produced a "very poor" broadcast on the case earlier in the day.

The trial is expected to conclude tomorrow.

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Edit (18/1/19): We have just heard that Ansari has been found not guilty of the offence.