Sunday times
Nicholas Hellen, Social Affairs Editor Published: 3 March 2013
About 20 former BBC staff are barred even from revealing they signed a gagging deal (Alastair Grant)
THE BBC has used licence fee money to buy the silence of about 20 former staff who left after claiming to have been the victims of bullying or sexual harassment.
They have laid out their grievances in formal complaints to a BBC review set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal and overseen by Dinah Rose QC.
Former staff rounded on the BBC for its “hypocrisy” in gagging employees while promising to clean up the culture that enabled Savile to escape detection for his sexual crimes.
The 20 people forced to sign the gags, called compromise agreements, are barred even from revealing they have signed such a deal.
A gagging clause in a compromise agreement that concealed a criminal offence amounts to a crime in itself – conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Multiple counts of coercing someone to enter into a such a conspiracy? The BBC isn’t exactly in a position to enforce those compromise agreements.
This report should generate a police investigation, however I am sure it won’t.