£2m BBC Savile inquiry branded a waste of time & money
The BBCs internal investigation into the circumstances leading up to the notorious decision to axe a Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile have been branded a waste of money by one of the broadcasters former director generals.
Greg Dyke said that the £2m inquiry, headed by former Sky News head Nick Pollard, should never have been commissioned and was only signed off because it was self-evident that there had been no undue interference in the editorial independence of the Newsnight team.
Dyke said: “It has cost an awful lot of money and I don’t think it is worth spending that to find out why the editor of Newsnight decided not to run the story. I think there was a panic on. If George [Entwistle] had been there a bit longer, it is unlikely he would have set this inquiry up."
As much as £2m may have to be splurged by the BBC on legal fees for witnesses and payments to Pollard, in tandem with a second (even more expensive) look at how managers made use of evidence Savile’s sex abuse.