Yet more BBC lies have been exposed thanks to the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Last year the Mail on Sunday submitted a request for information about the existence of documents pertaining to Martin Bashir's controversial Panorama interview of Diana, Princess of Wales.
The BBC replied: "No archived files have been destroyed since 2018, or at a previous date, with Panorama and Diana Princess of Wales in the title."
Dissatisfied with the response the Mail on Sunday probed a little deeper and now the BBC has confirmed that actually four files did exist, but none of them have been retained - in other words the BBC shredders starter whirring the second a hint of trouble was on the horizon.
According to the BBC the documents, which were destroyed sometime between 2004 and 2009, were duplicates of other records and "had little archive value". Presumably it never crossed the BBC's mind to take a digital image of the records in question, which would have been very quick and easy to achieve at the time.
Andrew Bridgen MP, an outspoken critic of the BBC, said: "The BBC surely must know what documents it has destroyed or how does it know that it has destroyed any documents? They are being evasive."
The BBC said that they had uncovered the new information after conducting "a more detailed search", although we're willing to bet that had an ordinary member of the public made the request it would have been stonewalled.
"Freedom of information" is very much a BBC euphemism for keeping controversial information buried.
Yesterday we reported that the BBC-commissioned independent investigation into Martin Bashir's procurement of the Diana interview was likely to cost TV licence payers a fortune in legal expenses.
No comments:
Post a Comment