BBC admits Kelly bungle

The BBC was forced to confess to a catalogue of serious errors in the case of weapons expert David Kelly today.

The admissions of bungling came tumbling out as its journalism and honesty came under fierce crossexamination at the Hutton Inquiry.

The Corporation's black day began when reporter Andrew Gilligan - who broke the original story accusing the Government of exaggerating its dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons - conceded he had made a string of basic errors.

Gilligan wrongly described Dr Kelly as an intelligence source and misquoted the scientist as having made allegations that the Government knew its 45-minute claim was wrong. In fact, Dr Kelly said no such thing.

Gilligan, the Today programme's defence correspondent, also gave a contrite apology for an email naming Dr Kelly as the source of a story by another BBC journalist - something he could not have known at the time.

Most damaging for the Corporation, director of news Richard Sambrook admitted that he failed to correct the public record even after the errors were uncovered and the row was still raging weeks later.

That left the BBC open to charges that the war with Downing Street sparked by its dossier report could have been settled before Dr Kelly was driven to commit suicide.

Sambrook also came under pressure this afternoon over his role in overseeing the BBC's counter-attack to complaints made by No10. He said he realised that Dr Kelly was not a member of the intelligence sources when Gilligan revealed the scientist to be his anonymous source on 27 June.

The director of news admitted allowing a press release to go out from the BBC governors referring to Dr Kelly as a member of the intelligence services, even though by then he knew it was wrong. He said the governors, at a meeting he had attended, had not pressed him on the identity of the source and that there had been "a very confused picture".

But he acknowledged: "I think it is regrettable that their press release referred to intelligence services."

He said that it was only at a late stage in the dispute with Downing Street that attention homed in on Gilligan's charge at the start of the Today programme, at 6.07am, that the Government had been dishonest.

Jonathan Sumption, the Government's QC, asked: "The fact is at

6.07am, whether you intend it to or not, you have attacked the good faith of the Government, had you not?" Sambrook replied: "On reflection I can see that.

At the time I do not think that was sufficiently recognised."

The BBC executive also acknowledged that they had been wrong to deliver a blanket denial of all the complaints from the Government.

He pointed out they had been under "considerable pressure" from Alastair Campbell, who had demanded an immediate response. But he said: "I certainly think we should have paused and considered at greater length the charges that were being levelled against us."

"At that point it was clear to me he was not a member of intelligence services.

Sambrook said. "I felt myself to be in a dilemma over it. Clearly it would be preferable to absolutely accurate about it but I did not wish to do anything which might lead to the identification of our source.

"My view was that on balance we were under a great duty of confidentiality to try to help prevent the identification of Dr Kelly."

Sambrook also admitted the Today
programme should have given clear notice to Downing Street of Gilligan's allegations and should have called in lawyers before the report went out.

The programme made another error by allowing presenters and other news programmes to repeat inaccuracies, including that it was based on an intelligence-source. Sambrook also disowned-Gilligan for writing an email to MPs naming Dr Kelly, saying: "It was an improper email to have sent and I do not think it would be right under any circumstances.

"I appreciate that Mr Gilligan felt himself to be under a great deal of pressure and may have made a misjudgement but I certainly was not aware of it and I do not believe anybody in the BBC would have authorised it."

Earlier, Gilligan admitted a string of errors in his reports over the Government dossier on the weapons threat from Saddam Hussein

He said he had been wrong to charge that the assertion in the dossier that weapons could be deployed in 45 minutes had been "fabricated".

He said he had not intended to accuse the Government of dishonesty but admitted his report amounted to just such a charge.

He said he had been wrong to describe Dr Kelly as a member of the intelligence services, telling the inquiry it was "a slip of the tongue".

And he said he had been wrong to report his own views as if they had been stated by Dr Kelly, his source, describing it as "an error I made".

Gilligan, however, stood by his claim that the name of Alastair Campbell as the culprit who "sexed up" the dossier had been put forward by Dr Kelly. That contradicted denials from a friend of Dr Kelly's and evidence from the weapons scientist himself, who told a Commons committee he did not believe he would have mentioned Mr Campbell unprompted.

Gilligan said after he suggested on the Today programme that Downing Street had inserted the 45-minute claim knowing it to be wrong, he had done

all he could in subsequent broadcasts to correct himself.