BBC lawyers accuse Campbell

Alastair Campbell made "misleading" statements to MPs at the height of the furore over the David Kelly affair, according to lawyers' advice commissioned by the BBC.

The lawyers claim Downing Street's former communications chief made untrue statements to a meeting of Parliament's foreign affairs committee (FAC).

The claims are in a leaked 135-page document which was meant to be the launching pad for a major BBC fightback after it was criticised by Lord Hutton's report last week. But the corporation's governors ignored their lawyers' advice.

The legal team targeted Mr Campbell and Jack Straw, claiming the Foreign Secretary also misled MPs over disquiet within the intelligence community over the Government's key September 2002 dossier outlining the threat from Iraq weapons.

The lawyers outline 12 main areas they say Lord Hutton ignored. Their claim that the report was "wrong" in law will cause fresh dismay within the corporation because of the refusal of governors to mount a counter-attack.

Some senior figures inside the BBC wanted to hit back hard, possibly by trying to obtain a judicial review of Lord Hutton's findings. But the chance now seems to have passed after the departures of chairman Gavyn Davies, director-general Greg Dyke and Andrew Gilligan, the reporter at the centre of the drama.

A section of the leaked lawyers' advice called Misleading Parliament draws a contrast between Mr Campbell's evidence to MPs and documents which emerged at the Hutton inquiry.

These spelled out that Mr Campbell had called for 15 changes in the drawing up of the dossier, including directly addressing the crucial claim that some Iraqi weapons were deployable within 45 minutes.

It said Mr Campbell told the FAC all the drafts on the 45-minute claim remained the same from the time they were first submitted to him and he had not suggested any change.

"Campbell excluded that point in his memorandum to the FAC," it added. "Campbell also excluded other changes he suggested from his memorandum to the FAC.

"The only sensible conclusion was he was deliberately selective in what he disclosed to the FAC, despite having the original drafts in front of him."

The lawyers say the decision to run Gilligan's original report on the 45-minute claim was justified in "freedom of expression" laws under the European Convention of Human Rights - a point not addressed by Lord Hutton.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "There is no question that the BBC's board of governors ignored legal advice."

Downing Street declined to comment "This has all been dealt with in the Hutton report," a spokesman said.