The Sunday Times (paywalled) reports that:
‘The BBC has used license fee money to buy the silence of about 20 former staff who left claiming to have been the victims of bullying or sexual harassment.’
‘The 20 people forced to sign the gags, called compromise agreements, are barred even from revealing they have signed such a deal.’
‘On the morning of Valentine’s Day, John Humphrys, the presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, spoke in tones of anger and disbelief about the scandal of NHS Trusts that gagged their own managers to prevent them speaking out about their concerns for patient safety.
Two female former BBC journalists listened with mounting fury.
One said: “I was shouting at the radio. Why don’t they investigate what the BBC is doing?”
“These women feel the BBC is supposed to be a transparent organisation which demanded accountability when it reports on other people’s activities and should apply the same standard to itself.”‘
Indeed…only recently we heard a journalist on Today complaining that Lloyds Bank didn’t want to be interviewed…..the journalist piously commenting that it was 39% publicly owned…and therefore should turn up to answer questions.
The BBC is 100% owned by the Public…..and yet again and again refuses to account for its actions or reveal information that would put it in bad light…going so far as to spend, as we know, £300,000 hiding the Balen Report which investigated claims that some of the BBC’s journalism could be seen as promoting or fomenting anti-Semitism in society.
What is the BBC hiding? The cupboard must be jam packed with skeletons by now.
The Mail has the same story
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287278/BBC-accused-using-licence-fee-cash-buy-silence-TWENTY-women-sex-complaints.html
Especially after the Beeb accused the NHS of the same tactics.
I wonder what non-stories will be pushed this week in order to avoid mentioning this?
or doubtless some smear job on UKIP or Israel will fit the bill nicely
Or some abuse allegation from 1955, where the accused has been dead for over twenty years, and the religion involved is a minority faith in the UK, but the wrong minority faith in the eyes of the BBC.
Nothing in the Guardian though.
That paper rebuilds its trust in the BBC and moves on so quickly after every new bad news BBC story that there often isn’t time to print an article about it.
As a lot of the Guardianistas are ex-BBC, maybe some will have signed a gagging order themselves so cannot report it.
Supplementary.
“BBC ‘silenced 20 former employees with gagging clauses’.
The BBC has forced about 20 former members of staff to sign gagging contracts banning them from speaking out about their experiences of bullying or sexual harassment at the corporation, it was claimed today.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9905528/BBC-silenced-20-former-employees-with-gagging-clauses.html
And where are our Dear Leaders?
The Tories are hiding under the table whilst the Socialists run the country with the BBC and the unions.
However, after the next election, if the Tories win, they say we will have it all;
A referendum on leaving the criminal European gang,
We will opt out of the European Court of Human Rights for terrorists,
Benefits to scroungers will be stopped,
And coal mines will open again, (see the connection there?)
Immigration will be controlled to people from Devon & Cornwall only,
Burkas will be banned, (and so will hoodies)
The NHS will be privatised, and run by matrons with proper medical qualifications,
Free speech will be re-instated, even to white folks,
The BBC will be sold off to Rupert Murdoch for £1,
The police will start chasing criminals, even ones from the religion of peace,
Judges will lock up all criminals, even ones from the religion of peace,
Windmills will be situated in the gardens of the darlings of the Chipping Norton set,
All pensioners will get the same benefits as civil servants & MP’s,
And politicians will become honourable people…
AND LITTLE PIGS WILL FLY
Cameron will promise anything now as he cannot win an election. Finished off the Tory party. He has done his job.
Yes, after hearing his CAST IRON guarantee I’m totally convinced lol!
Cameron’s damaged goods, too many lies, he’s of no use to anyone except Labour and the EU.
Cast iron rusts easily – ’nuff said !
UK to leave European Court of Human Rights?
Does anyone believe that this will happen (although, of course, it should), given the innate political subservience to European external courts by much of British political class (inc BBC-NUJ)?
“A great day for British justice: Theresa May vows to take UK out of the European Court of Human Rights.
Mrs May wants to withdraw from the convention before next election in 2015.
Attempt to reform the convention last year was dismissed as a flop.”
By SIMON WALTERS.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287183/A-great-day-British-justice-Theresa-May-vows-UK-European-Court-Human-Rights.html
Which is bull, and May knows it.
Cameron pushing a gay and tranny agenda (marriages, etc) as current chairman of the Council of Europe – the 47-state body that supervises the European Court of Human Rights and the convention.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/equalities/international-equality/council-europe/
And EU rules forbid us from leaving the convention and terminating our relationship with the Court. May has form for lying about illegal immigration too, this being just another of her cheap, dirty little attempts to split the UKIP vote.
http://britain-today.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/uk-disappearing-fast.html
Sounds like a sort of prostitution to me – engage in lewd activities first, THEN pay them to keep quiet. How very BBC.
I think that there have been so many examples of the BBC preaching one thing but doing just the opposite eg tax avoidance , FOI request denials , refusal to publish expenses , redactions etc etc, that there must be some deeper explanation than just hypocrisy.
Perhaps they suffer from the same perverted sense of the justice of their cause that the Bolsheviks did when they murdered millions for the common good. The BBC see themselves as agents of fairness and toleration helping to create a modern , multicultural and liberal society in Britain where old fashioned rightist values have no place.
Almost by definition therefore they believe themselves to be beyond reproach. The rightness of their cause also makes it imperative to present an unsullied face to the British public and so small errors of judgement etc can be covered up with a clear conscience because it is all for the common good. Also, if it is necessary to bend the facts , to rewrite history , to not report certain inconvenient events that don’t fit the narrative , it is all justifiable in their mission to create a multicultural liberal utopia.
I’d take these cases to the European Court of Human Rights…
Okay, that’s actually funny.
It’s a trap!
These are not the crimes you are looking for …
Or as The Great O’Blimey would say;
‘It’s a lie Luke, but not that we know it …’
Buying the silence of witnesses to criminal activity – common practice in one form or another among the criminal classes – is defined in law as “perverting the course of justice”.
Lately the practice has been taken up with gusto by state funded organisations seeking to protect themselves and their incompetence from public exposure and in the cases described in this post, from possible police interest.
Those imposing these strictures on ex-employees, where criminality is suspected, should of course be pursued through the criminal courts with equal gusto, but it would take an administration with real balls to initiate the required investigations and simultaneously take on both the BBC and the NHS over these matters.
Unfortunately our current administration shows no sign of actually owning a pair.
‘Why don’t they investigate what the BBC is doing?”
This ‘they’ being… the BBC?
But there is another thorough… internal investigation, costing yet more, and a spiffy report. Dinah, Dinah, show us your XXXXX?
There does seem quite a lot of this around, and folk are starting to notice.
‘This is taxpayers’ money being spent to stop [people] talking..
Maybe soon a few more taxpayers will connect the dots?
It is inconceivable that with the BBC displaying the corrupt day to day practices that it does, and that we highlight here over a whole range of areas, that it won’t also manifest within their organisation.
Rotten on the outside – rotten on the inside!
I can’t even say that I have too much sympathy for these ‘victims’ either. Instead of making their complaints public, they chose to cover it up in return for whatever financial deal they received.
This again shows the mindset prevalent within the corporation. They have a price for the way they will conduct themselves, the ‘truth’ they will present, even when they are victims.
Interesting times.
Anyway, we at least have the prospect of a new, and expanding leadership to ensure… what now?
http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/vamos-dancar.html?
‘Originally Lord Hall was expected to start his tenure as DG of the BBC in “early March”. It’s been delayed to April 2 to give him a holiday – but the new timing has also enabled him to fly to Rio, for three gala performances at the Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro,’
Hey, no worries. Early March…early April. Why not just take two months and make it early May Turn Up One Day?
Not like the place is falling further apart as we speak.
Another establishment timeserver, worthless sh*te pretending to do the job while trousering a large wedge and pension in their pointless twighlight years, guaranteed therefore not to rock the boat. The last person on the planet to give the job to, naturally, absolutely right. Remind us who was on the appointment panel? All on the take.
Lots of companies have some form of non-disclosure agreement with terminated employees, or employees who leave the company with some kind of, shall we say, negotiated settlement. But since this is the National Treasure, a morally superior entity, it does kind of smack of that super-injunction mess. And I understand how this looks like hypocrisy. The BBC defense on this will probably be on the grounds of journalism, like they do with FOI requests. It’s hard to claim special privilege on everything.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe where our nation’s Professional Conservatives had functioning testicles, this would be the perfect rebuttal to future Beeboid whining about their refusal to drop their trousers and submit to a prostate exam every time some loony conjures up a conspiracy theory.
Of course, if did have any balls, the BBC would already have been razed to the ground and the ground ploughed with salt anyway.
Scapegoats are clearly needed, but helping the police to frame elderly white celebrities for paedophilia has already been used to distract us from moslem grooming gangs. Still, perhaps extra charges can now be laid against them.
Heard just a bit of the truly awful “Sunday” earlier.(R4 7-8a.m today).
Apparently some exotic African working out of London in his own charismatic church is claiming to heal people…using prayer I tells ya!
Send for NiHCE…local Mps…helath professionals and local Beeb Boobies to spout the “irresponsible, false hopes stuff”
Prosecute…stiff letters…find some local diversity czar of old Kens to denounce this weaver of false dreams of health with all that faith and prayer pish!
And this a religious programme too?
All well and good for ole Jesus to do such things..but this African pastor seems to think that it`s a goer too…NO!
Good Lordy , no…minibus to mid-Staffs a FAR better option instead.
What a crock of shite religious broadcasting has now become…as if an anti-Christian Muslim might be running the shows?
To be fair to him, all his cipher stooges of so-called Christians
are anti-Christian too…Giles, Richard, Helena, Cherie and Tony…oh God, where`s Derek Nimmo?