Tony Blackburn OMG

[katemiddletonsothermum]

No one from my teenage radio days has been free from aspersions.

Now then, careful now. No false allegations please. But according to the Mirror, he's been axed by the BBC as he's now linked to an incident in 1971.

The Mirror's Thursday front page

AIBU to think WTF?

From the news tonight it was the new inquiry that "rejected" his evidence, & that's why the BBC felt able to sack him.

He didn't claim that he didn't remember being interviewed, he said he absolutely wasn't interviewed. The BBC apparently showed contemporaneous evidence that he was interviewed.

it might hinge on how 'interview' is defined...

Louis theoreux and Johnny Lyndon (rotten) also spoke out...

In the 70s, Jeremy?

FinestGrundy that is interesting stuff you posted from the DT. Thank you.

TBH, I think the whole Childline thing was an attempt by people within the BBC to do something in response to what they knew/suspected was going on.

They were either scared to do anything more direct, or had been frustrated when they made initial attempts...so Childline was a bit of an outlet for that frustration...plus an attempt to change environment/culture so that accusations of abuse would get taken more more seriously by society at large. I.e. it mean that one day, people would be listened to/taken seriously.

Can you imagine someone going to the press about Saville in the late 70s/early 80s...they wouldn't have gotten far. Don't imagine they would have gotten far at Broadcasting House either, plus would have effectively been signing a career suicide note.

Interestingly, on the Showbiz Forum on the Digital Spy site there was a mammoth thread detailing the rumours about Jimmy Savile for several years before his death. Loads of people had heard about it, it was an open secret to a lot of the general populace as well as BBC insiders.

Digital Spy was one of the few places to allow open discussion of it. I wonder if they would be able to do that these days with the libel laws as they are? I know they're another forum where discussion of the McCanns is verboten lest Carter Ruck get wind of it.

Didn't David Icke speak out too?

It always amazes me with childline that not once was a call taken from a victim of Saville, amazing when you think about it.

I wonder if they would be able to do that these days with the libel laws as they are?

The only significant change in the libel laws has been to clarify the position of websites hosting forums such as this. If the forum is not moderated and someone posts something potentially libellous the website operator is not liable provided they remove the material promptly when they receive an appropriate notice from the person who claims they are being libelled. All this really did was formalise the position the courts had already taken. So whether or not the thread you described would survive depends on whether or not Savile gave them notice to remove it.

I also found it fascinating that on Question Time last night - which has had questions about the BBC when it has been criticised before - had just four questions. Three about Europe, taking 50 minutes of the programme, and the NHS which took up 7 minutes. I know we have a referendum coming but it's 17 weeks away and no one has received any actual info yet from any official party or camp on which to start basing a sensible response.

You seriously telling me that not one member of the audience put in a question about the Savile Report? Seems ridiculous. Are the BBC afraid of what the public might have said or asked? One of the panellists, Julia Hartley-Brewer had already come out on Twitter criticising them for the Blackburn debacle.

Esther also went out with Nicholas Fairbairn

Tony Blackburn has not been sacked on the basis he actually committed any offence towards Claire McAlpine, and Dame Janet says clearly (para ,p ) that she can't make and isn't making any finding about it:

9.57 For the sake of completeness, I should make it clear at this
stage that I have not attempted to make any judgment about
the allegation involving A7 and Claire McAlpine. The question
does not fall within my Terms of Reference. My legitimate
interest in this matter relates only to what can be inferred about
the BBC’s culture and practices from the way in which the
matter was investigated by the BBC.

The issues about recollection and accuracy are set out as follows:

9.55 Approximately 10 days after Mrs McAlpine’s complaint,
Mr Preston confirmed to Mr Derrick that, a few days earlier, A7
had been interviewed by the Head of Light Entertainment
Group, Television (Mr Cotton) and had flatly denied what had
been alleged. Mr Preston, however, recorded a note of
concern, “For my part, I must accept the situation, although I
would be less than fair if I were not to record that his [A7’s]
recollection of [date redacted] does not agree with the first
thoughts of his agent”. Mr Preston did not specify in what
respects A7’s account had differed from the agent’s first
thoughts, given over the telephone. Further, the BBC papers
do not contain a note of A7’s interview by Mr Cotton and
Mr Preston and, as the rest of the file appears to be intact, I
infer that no note was taken.

9.56 The Savile investigation interviewed A7 in 2013. He told us that
all he remembered was being called by his agent just before
the News of the World article came out to be told that the article
was going to be printed and that his name was in Claire
McAlpine’s diary. He remembers being told by his agent that,
in addition to his name, there were other showbusiness names
in the diary, including the name of Frank Sinatra, and
remembers the diary being described by his agent as
“ridiculous”. In our interview, A7 denied that he was ever made
aware that a complaint had been made against him and also denied
that he was ever interviewed by Mr Cotton and/or Mr
Preston. He said that this was not a lapse of memory on his
part; the interview had not taken place. It was pointed out to
him that, if indeed there had been no interview, it was strange
that Mr Preston should have written this memorandum and
should have recorded his concern about the disparity between
the account given by A7 at the interview and that given earlier
by his agent. A7 could offer no explanation for this and said
that he was “mystified”. Later, through his solicitor, A7
accepted that I might well prefer the documentary evidence to
his recollection on these issues. I do prefer that evidence and
think that A7 was interviewed and denied the allegation. There
was no other investigation.

Barrister friend of mine says Dame J was quite tetchy as a judge but also robust: not some who would be a whitewash merchant.

Just because a report doesn't say what you hoped or believed does not mean the author has been careless, much less dishonest. There is clearly room for wide disagreement on a lot of this.

Perhaps she is 'Robust' in propping up the Establishment, MyFavouriteClinton.

Yy, room for wide disagreement.

As a survivor I found her comments appalling.

Clinton, she has completely failed to hold any senior BBC staff responsible. She had to turn down the Hall inquiry because of close personal links to BBC managers. People are calling it a whitewash because that's what it is. I don't think anybody really takes it very seriously.

In any case, the TB case seems to have fulfilled it's intended purpose. Everybody is talking about that and not what a joke the report is.

MyFavourite I think the problem for a lot of us is that it just seems so incredible as to be untrue - that not one senior manager knew anything. Because that would also mean not one junior member of staff (117 of whom did know something) ever got promoted at the BBC to become a senior manager. Esther Rantzen says she heard rumours while she was at the BBC. She was probably not much less of a VIP than Savile. Had she said something, I believe it would have been listened to.

Then we have the fact that the BBC prevented one of its own teams - can't remember off hand if it was Newsnight or Panorama - from showing a report that effectively would have blown the whistle on Savile around the time of his death. The only possible explanation is someone or some people were protecting the BBC and/or themselves from something they KNEW to be true - and that alone flies in the face of "senior managers knew nothing", even if that means they didn't know LATER, rather than at the time of these offences.

While these redacted memos have arisen, and Blackburn himself has released another statement, the Smith report confirms that no note was taken of this alleged interview with Cotton, Preston and Blackburn. This to my mind seems odd.

The trouble is that Smith herself said this culture of fear existed. That the stars were regarded as untouchable. Senior managers at BBC Manchester DID know about Hall and DID cover it up. It is therefore perfectly plausible that feel that a manager on the receipt of an allegation towards a big star would bury it rather than follow it up. And bury it by saying they had spoken to A7, he denied it, I felt it would be totally out of character and that's an end of it.

And that scenario would fit the current redacted memos and back Blackburn's claims that the BBC used to whitewash these events.

Even allowing for the fact that Blackburn was interviewed and 45 years later is sure he wasn't - and most of us would have trouble recalling a meeting about anything, even something like this that far on - the Police investigation into McAlpine regarded her claims as fantasy, what little we have seen of her diary tends to back that up, that her mother retracted the allegation, that another family member said that Savile's name was in the diary as an abuser but not Blackburn, that the family and police will not allow anyone to read the diary...

It's just all far too odd to be believable.

*did now know LATER

I feel very sorry for the guy. On the basis of no evidence at all, other than the memory of a pensioner not according with others' recollection of events 45 years ago, he has been hung out to dry.

Memory is a very malleable & plastic thing, if the undocumented 'interview' was a chat in someone's office it's not at all impossible that a man in his 70's genuinely does not recall it.

Memory is not a faithful and indelible recording of what happens. There have been enough studies to show that it can change, be subject to suggestion, become false or just deleted. Over 45 years for an elderly guy - of course it can!

I'm disgusted with what the BBC have done.

Very well put DrSeth

Whatever the truth, this sure is a mess and we have no faith that we will ever know the real story.

I'm still marvelling that on a day when it was inevitable that black news for the BBC would come out they actively took steps to make things worse.

Their mishandling has given the distinct impression that the report is a whitewash, the BBC have not been honest, and they sacked an irrelevant person in an attempt to cause misdirection.

The whole point of the report is so that the BBC can engage with it properly, take relevant steps, and maybe, as the years pass, restore the trust of the public. As far as I can see they gave a clear message that they are dishonest, self-serving, underhand, and incompetent.

The outpouring of support for Blackburn online is really quite astonishing. Even people who don't necessarily like his style of DJing feel he's been shafted, that the BBC stinks to high heaven, that this report is laughable and they are really angry about it all. I think, in part, because we all have no choice but to pay for the BBC who enabled all this to happen and still don't seem to have learned the lessons.

Which is a shame, because what the BBC does well, it does very well and is rightly praised around the world. As I said before, a newspaper closed down for less than this and any other publicly funded agency with this amount of stench and scandal surrounding it would be closed down.

'a few days earlier, A7 had been interviewed by the Head of Light Entertainment Group, Television (Mr Cotton) and had flatly denied what had been alleged'

'Mr Preston, however, recorded a note of concern, “For my part, I must accept the situation, although I would be less than fair if I were not to record that his [A7’s] recollection of [date redacted] does not agree with the first thoughts of his agent”. Mr Preston did not specify in what
respects A7’s account had differed from the agent’s first thoughts'

'Further, the BBC papers do not contain a note of A7’s interview by Mr Cotton and Mr Preston and, as the rest of the file appears to be intact, I
infer that no note was taken.'

How vague and dodgy does this sound, FFS?