BBC editor steps aside over Savile scandal

UK: The head of the BBC’s flagship current affairs TV programme stepped aside on Monday as accusations grew of a cover-up of sexual abuse claims against late television star Jimmy Savile. Newsnight editor Peter Rippon had given an inaccurate account of why the show dropped its investigation into Savile, the shamed presenter who died last year, the BBC said in a statement.

The BBC, the world’s largest public broadcaster, has launched two independent inquiries into the allegations about Savile while British police have launched a criminal investigation. “The BBC has announced that Peter Rippon is stepping aside with immediate effect from his post,” the BBC said.

The announcement came just hours after the BBC had denied a report in the Daily Mail newspaper that he would resign.

A blog that Rippon wrote about why Newsnight had last year dropped an investigation into the paedophile allegations against Savile was “inaccurate or incomplete in some respects” and has been corrected, the BBC said.

It said: “The BBC regrets these errors and will work with the Pollard Review (led by Nick Pollard, a former executive at the BBC’s rival Sky News) to assemble all relevant evidence to enable the review to determine the full facts.” The BBC has insisted that the show was dropped for editorial reasons, not to cover up the allegations of abuse against one of the corporation’s biggest stars during the 1970s and 1980s.

The BBC show Panorama to be broadcast on Monday will claim the corporation pulled the broadcast of an investigation into Savile carried out by Newsnight after coming under pressure from senior managers

AFP