THE BBC’s director-general has said human error was the reason the corporation platformed Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer and friend in the wake of the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict.
Alan Dershowitz, who previously represented Epstein, as well as OJ Simpson and Donald Trump, was given a slot on BBC News after Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking young girls.
The BBC introduced him only as a “constitutional lawyer”, with no mention of his deep connections to sexual offenders Maxwell and Epstein.
The emeritus professor at Harvard Law School used his interview to cast serious aspersions on Virginia Giuffre - who is currently involved in lawsuits alleging that both he and Prince Andrew sexually abused her when she was a minor. Both men strongly deny all Giuffre’s claims.
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An intense backlash followed the interview, with the BBC being labelled “sickeningly passive” and accused of presenting Dershowitz only as an expert lawyer “rather than as an accused party”.
The corporation soon admitted fault, saying the broadcast “did not meet the BBC’s editorial standards”.
A spokesperson added that the BBC would “look into” how it had happened.
However, speaking to the House of Lords communications and digital committee, BBC director-general Tim Davie (above) said there had been “no investigation”.
Davie told peers: "We looked at what happened but there was no investigation.
"We admitted immediately it was in breach of our editorial guidelines and straight away said it was a mistake.
"Then you get to why it was a mistake. You can argue a little bit in terms of the amount of seniority and cover we had during Christmas, during Covid."
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But he said: "This was simply about the amount of due diligence that was done by the planner and the knowledge level of the person who was putting the person on air."
The BBC faced a slew of questions around its coverage of the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, which saw her found guilty on five of six charges related to the trafficking of young girls for her now deceased partner Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.
Despite the charges, the BBC ran a story headlined on Maxwell having been a “favourite daughter”, and broadcast an interview with her brother - who used the opportunity to protest her innocence.
The former socialite faces spending the rest of her life behind bars, with sentencing yet to be handed down.
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