BBC announces appointment of Savile inquiry heads

 
17 October 2012

The BBC has appointed a former high court judge and a former head of Sky News to lead two separate inquiries into the Jimmy Savile affair, the broadcaster announced tonight.

High court judge Dame Janet Smith will lead an independent review into the general practices and culture of the BBC during the time that Savile worked there. In a different and separate inquiry, former head of Sky News Nick Pollard will look into how and why the Newsnight report into the claims against Savile was dropped.

The corporation announced the inquiries last week and now the two heads have been appointed by the BBC Executive and agreed by the BBC Trust.

The Newsnight report was dropped late last year and there have been repeated suggestions that the decision was made because of the BBC's planned Christimas Savile-tribute programmes, claims that the BBC has repeatedly denied.

The Oldie, which is edited by Private Eye founder Richard Ingrams, carried the story of the Newsnight investigation blocking as far back as February. The article was written by Miles Goslett and it is rumoured that he had tried to get Fleet Street interested in the story but failed, and it took Mr Ingrams to recognise its significance.

BBC director-general George Entwistle said last week that he was launching the Newsnight inquiry to shake off the "clouds of suspicion".

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in