The BBC’s shameful treatment of freelance graphic designer Matt Wiessler in the Panorama / Princess Diana scandal will come as no surprise to BBC whistleblowers everywhere. It is standard BBC practice to destroy the reputations of outsiders to protect senior management salaries and pensions.
A decade ago we blew the whistle on dodgy BBC documentary funding. The BBC then framed us with serious funding allegations, all false, using an internal BBC inquiry by Hugh Saxby, who made no contact with us. The BBC used us to distract from the fact that they were broadcasting films about Malaysia paid for by now-convicted fraudster Prime Minister Najib Razak and made by Trump swamp-monster Paul Manafort’s business partners (last seen in the Mueller Inquiry).
None of the BBC’s Trustees ever made contact or talked with us. The BBC Dumpster in Chief was Peter Horrocks, who had a lot to lose from his own involvement approving dodgy films. News of his role in the cover-up spread beyond the BBC and one of the world’s biggest Foundations called him a “wanker”. That’s him crying in the picture above. We took a massive hit to our reputations and business propects. People lost their jobs.
Five years later the regulator OFCOM investigated BBC funding malfeasance and binned the charges against us, except one – which fell outside OFCOM’s remit.
The next year the BBC was forced to retract the last allegation. The film had not been funded by a charity that ran the tree planting project featured – something that had always been known and was in print from the beginning. The BBC Trust announced this climb-down by burying a sentence deep in its final report. It said it all been the consequence of a “Summarising Error”.
We went through hell and waited 6 years for a “Summarising Error”. That’s Bullshit.