BBC acting like 'secret service' by censoring criticism, Lord McAlpine says - Telegraph.co.uk

According to sources familiar with the redaction process, there has been a conflict between lawyers BBC Trust, which wants to publish as much as possible, and the BBC's executive.

The source said: "The trust lawyers, who wanted to publish everything to fulfil Patten's pledge, and the BBC executive's lawyers squared up against each other, and the BBC executive's lawyers have won.

"They have been fighting to redact everything they can that will cause trouble. It goes way, way beyond all the idea of just defamation – any criticism at all of management has been taken out."

On Thursday, Lord McAlpine, the former Conservative party treasurer, announced his determination to sue Sally Bercow for damages after dropping claims against non-celebrity Twitter users.

Mrs Bercow, the wife of the Commons speaker, is being sued by the peer for naming him on Twitter after a report by BBC's Newsnight claimed a senior Tory was a paedophile.

The BBC paid Lord McAlpine £185,000 plus costs for the false Newsnight report. However, Lord McAlpine said that staff working on the programme appeared to have taken "joy" in targeting him.

He said: "There are quite a lot of people who created this news night revelation with a certain amount of joy. I was a Tory and a Thatcherite and they thought it was too good to be true.

"I was accused of the worst things, I just want to live in peace now. This was forced on me, it will never go away. The stigma remains, the stuff is still whizzing around the internet.

"People don't realise that Twitter is not like gossiping across the garden fence to your neighbour. It is like publishing a book or newspaper which everyone can read."

The corporation has failed to sack a single executive in the wake of the McAlpine and Savile scandals, despite admitting that weak leadership left it in a state of "chaos".

Six senior executives and editors were singled out for criticism, but none have been fired. Two have quit, and four have been moved into new positions within the corporation.

Helen Boaden, was criticised for the "casual" way in which she warned George Entwistle, the former director, about the conflict between the Newsnight investigation and a planned Savile tribute programme. She was last week appointed as the new director of BBC Radio.

Adrian Van Klaveren, the former controller of BBC Radio Five Live who signed off the Lord McAlpine Newsnight programme, is now overseeing programming for the centenary of World War One.

Peter Rippon, the Newsnight editor who made the "flawed and wrong" decision to pull the Savile programme, has been appointed as head of the BBC's News Archive.

Liz Gibbons, the deputy editor of Newsnight who opposed the Savile programme on grounds of taste, remains at the corporation.

A spokesman for the BBC said defamatory comments had been redacted: "There are a strict set of legal criteria that govern what redactions have to be made before publication. Embarrassment is not a criterion for redaction."