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Ex-BBC boss Mark Thompson could be recalled to Parliament for misleading MPs over ‘catastrophic’ digital media project

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By John Glenday, Reporter

June 11, 2013 | 2 min read

A group of MPs have accused former BBC director general Mark Thompson and senior management of lying about a ‘catastrophic’ £98.4m digital media project, after saying that much of the evidence provided by them ‘just wasn’t true’.

The disastrous project, designed to do away with videotapes and digitise archive content, was axed last month but fallout from the fiasco continues to shake the broadcaster as recriminations fly and investigators rake through the ashes of the former flagship project.

BBC Trustee Anthony Fry conceded that the affair had been a ‘complete catastrophe’, adding: “It is extraordinarily worrying. At a personal level it is probably the most serious, embarrassing thing I have ever seen."

This could see Thompson recalled to Parliament to explain why he told MPs in 2011 was ‘out in the business’ and that ‘many programmes are being made with DMI’.

Margaret Hodge, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, said: "The thing that really shook me is we were told there were bits of this system that were working, you were using and running programmes with them, and that wasn't true. That just wasn't true."

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