BBC to put Hutton report under lock and key

Guardian ^ | January 23, 2004 | Matt Wells

[Prodigal Son]

The BBC is taking extensive steps to prevent its own journalists from getting their hands on advance copies of the Hutton report from within the corporation.

BBC staff who gave evidence at the Hutton inquiry, including director general Greg Dyke and news director Richard Sambrook, will receive a copy of the report the day before it is published next week. But Lord Hutton's confidentiality agreement bars them from passing it to the news division.

To prevent leaks within the BBC, the corporation has ordered that lawyers be present whenever a copy of the report is being studied. No one who has not signed Lord Hutton's confidentiality agreement will be allowed in a room where the report is being examined.

When the reports are not being used, they will be locked in a safe at the BBC's headquarters. Some BBC executives will be put up in hotels overnight.

The corporation is worried about being attacked by Lord Hutton if it transmits details of his conclusions before they are published. It is possible, however, that senior BBC journalists may learn of the report's contents from sources outside the BBC: in that instance, the corporation would run the story if the sources were strong.

A network of "Chinese walls" has been set up: neither Mr Sambrook nor anyone else connected with the Hutton inquiry would be consulted about such a decision.

The BBC is braced for a testing period after the publication on Wednesday; yester day the corporation was picking up the pieces from the hard-hitting Panorama programme on the affair.

Some BBC journalists questioned why Panorama did not use all of the previously unseen interview with David Kelly, the weapons expert who apparently killed himself after being revealed as the source for Andrew Gilligan's Iraq dossier story.

Insiders pointed out that the extract used in the programme was politically neutral: Dr Kelly agreed Iraq's chemical and biological weapons were an immediate threat, but added that it would take days or weeks to make them ready for launch.

There was also controversy over Panorama's assertion that Gilligan had been "hauled over the coals" over his use of language before the dossier row.

A source on Panorama told MediaGuardian.co.uk yesterday: "Andrew was told he had a tendency to go 10% too far and that this sometimes led him to editorialise in inappropriate ways and if he didn't control this, it was going to undermine him as a reporter."

Gilligan's fury at Panorama was shown in a four-letter tirade quoted by the Times. He added: "It was a meeting to say how well I had done in Iraq and I was criticised over one matter. It was 95% praise."

Despite releasing clips of the previously unseen David Kelly interview in advance, the programme was not a ratings hit: an average of 2.3 million saw the peak-time special, about the same number who see the programme in its Sunday night slot.