The Stage

BBC Trust labels Ross and Brand messages ‘grossly offensive’

Published Friday 21 November 2008 at 14:40 by Matthew Hemley

Messages left on the answerphone of actor Andrew Sachs by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand have been labelled “grossly offensive” and a “deplorable intrusion” by the BBC Trust.

A review into the incident, carried out by the Corporation’s governing body and published today, found that there was no justification to broadcast the recordings of messages left by Ross and Brand as part of the latter’s Radio 2 show.

In the messages, Brand and Ross joked that Brand had slept with Sachs’ granddaughter and that Sachs might kill himself when he heard them.

The trust’s review said no “BBC content should reveal intimate details of the private lives of individuals without their consent” and said the broadcast of the recordings was an “abuse of the privilege given to the BBC to broadcast to its audiences”.

The trust’s Editorial Standards Committee said there had also been three major failings - a failure to assert editorial control by Radio 2, a failure to follow the compliance systems in place and a failure of editorial judgement.

Speaking about the findings today, trust chairman Michael Lyons said: “The offending parts of the programme should never have been recorded. Once recorded, however, they should never have been broadcast. The Russell Brand breaches were all the more serious because of the misjudgments by those responsible for editorial control within the BBC.”

He said that the incident meant there would now be “steps to ensure a common understanding across the BBC of how the existing editorial guidelines should be interpreted in different genres”.

“This will be reinforced by tougher penalties for anyone failing to comply with the procedures. There will be tighter controls on programmes produced by independent owned and/or managed by the featured performer or artist. The management will present recommendations for new controls next month,” he added.

In addition, Lyons said there would be a new register of high risk programmes within the BBC’s audio and music department.

In 2009, the BBC’s editorial guidelines will be reviewed, and Lyons said part of this review would consider “the use of language and the boundaries of generally accepted standards”.

“Let me be clear. There is no place on the BBC for casual and gratuitous use of the most offensive language without clear editorial judgement,” he said.

Despite the findings of the review, Lyons said Ross would not be hit with further punishment for his part in the prank calls.

The presenter is currently suspended without pay for a period of three months.

“We have underlined very clearly that it is not the job of the trust to make decisions about the terms and conditions of performers or the sanctions that are applied to them when they are found to be wanting. We are very clear that the director general has taken the right action with respect to Jonathan Ross,” he said.