The author of a report on a deal between the BBC and a police force which led to the filming of a raid on Sir Cliff Richard’s home has said the Daily Mail’s coverage of his inquiry was “highly inaccurate”.
Under the deal between the broadcaster and South Yorkshire police, the BBC agreed to delay, by a month, publishing details of an investigation into an allegation that Richard sexually abused a 16-year-old boy in the 1980s. In return, the force tipped off the broadcaster about the timing of the raid on Richard’s Berkshire home, allowing it to broadcast live helicopter footage of the operation in August 2014.
Richard has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He had not been interviewed by the police before the raid, which he watched unfold on TV while he was on holiday in Portugal.
The Daily Mail headline on Tuesday said both police and the BBC had been “savaged” by the report, and the article claimed that the inquiry had found police officials to be incompetent and the BBC dishonest.
The author of the report, the former chief constable Andy Trotter, said all of this was wrong, and that the Mail’s coverage was so misleading that he did not recognise his own report from it.
The report did, however, say that the controversial deal “certainly interfered with his [Richard’s] privacy and may well have caused unnecessary distress”.
Trotter, a former media spokesman for Britain’s police chiefs, conducted the review (pdf) for the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner.
The report says that the South Yorkshire chief constable, David Crompton, could have stepped in to prevent the media agreement. Trotter says he believed the police agreement to the deal was an error of judgment, done to try to protect their investigation into the allegations about the singer.
Trotter told the Guardian: “When I saw the headline I genuinely thought it must refer to someone else’s report. It bore no resemblance to my report and at no time did I say the police were incompetent or the BBC was dishonest. My report clearly does not say that.”
“Neither the police or the BBC are ‘savaged’. I made no comment, whatsoever, about the BBC. That was not part of my remit.”
South Yorkshire police said they entered in to the deal because they feared that crucial evidence would be lost if the BBC reported that the 74-year-old singer was under investigation before the raid took place, as it had threatened. They believed that the BBC’s reporter, Dan Johnson, had been leaked information about the inquiry from Operation Yewtree, the Metropolitan police investigation into child sex abuse by the former BBC DJ Jimmy Savile and others.
But in his review published on Tuesday, Trotter concluded that the BBC was unlikely to have run the story based on a single source without police cooperation.
Johnson was not interviewed by Trotter and has not disclosed his source.
Trotter’s review says it is possible that South Yorkshire police were “conned” by Johnson into revealing more information about the investigation than he already had. He noted, however, that the force’s head of communications, Carrie Goodwin, and the senior investigating officer in the case, Matt Fenwick, were adamant that Johnson knew as much as they did about the investigation when he approached the force a month before the raid.
Trotter’s review said South Yorkshire police had breached police guidance on protecting the identity of those under investigation.
“Bearing in mind that at [the time of the raid] Sir Cliff Richard had not been interviewed, let alone arrested, he should not have been informed of the allegations through the media.
“By cooperating, the force ‘stood the story up’ and absolved the BBC of any risk or responsibility for the story.”
The review called for revised police guidance to advise officers on how they invited journalists on planned operations.
South Yorkshire police have already been heavily criticised for the way they handled the case. The home affairs select committee described the raid as “utterly inept”, but said the BBC was “within its rights to run the story”.
The Trotter review says the handling of the raid has dented the force’s reputation. It says it should have taken external advice, including from the Metropolitan police, before agreeing to cooperate with the BBC.
Trotter concludes: “I came across nothing to suggest that the force was seeking publicity or involved in any improper relationships with the media. However, through a failure to foresee the consequences of their decisions, they put the force in a position which was difficult to defend and which could, and should, have been avoided.”
A South Yorkshire police spokesman said: “While we believe our actions in relation to dealing with the media were within policy and were well intended, they were ultimately flawed and we regret the additional anxiety which was caused to Sir Cliff Richard.”
A BBC spokesman said: “The home affairs committee has already endorsed the way the BBC handled this story. We have nothing further to add.”