Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, Mark Thompson, BBC director general and Jim Gray, Channel 4 News editor gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry into media ethics yesterday, as well as ITN head of compliance John Battle.
It was revealed that both Channel 4 and the BBC had spent money on private investigators. Mark Thompson said that the BBC had spent £310,000 on paying private investigators on 232 occasions between January 2005 and July 2011. When questioned about this, Thompson said that some stories require “survelliance”.
The BBC spend on private investigation was shared between the news and consumer shows. On one occasion the BBC used investigator Steve Whittamore, who was later convicted of illegally accessing personal data, to check flight details.
Thompson described secret filming as "a resource of last resort."Thompson confirmed that an internal BBC review found that the BBC had never engaged in phone hacking or payments to police. Gray confirmed that a similar investigation into phone hacking at Channel 4 News had shown that there was no evidence of the practice or of payments to the police.
Gray revealed that Channel 4 news had paid private investigators on two occasions to locate individuals to film or interview as part of a public interest investigation. The sums paid were £200 and £1500.
Gray was asked if there were broadcast regulations that might transfer to print. He couldn’t think of any specific regulations, but did confirm that he found it hard to think of a story that he was not able to air because of OFCOM guidelines.
Battle was asked about parallels between broadcast and print in the context of regulation. He said that he felt that it would be inappropriate for one single body to oversee regulation in both print and broadcast.