Posted on 08/13/2003 5:04:14 PM PDT by swilhelm73
Newsnight reporter Susan Watts today denounced the BBC's "attempts to mould" her stories in what she believed was a "misguided strategy" to "corroborate" Andrew Gilligan's controversial report on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
In an extraordinary development at the Hutton inquiry today, Watts revealed she felt compelled to seek separate legal representation because of pressure from her BBC managers to reveal David Kelly as her main source in order to corroborate Gilligan's story - a move she felt "was misguided and false".
When the inquiry counsel, James Dingemans QC, had completed his questioning of her today, Watts said she wanted to explain why she had appointed her own QC.
"I felt under some considerable pressure from the BBC. I also felt the purpose of that was to help corroborate Andrew Gilligan's allegations, not for any news purposes," said Watts.
Mr Dingemans then asked Watts whether she thought her Newsnight stories corroborated Gilligan's allegations, including whether Alastair Campbell had inserted the 45 minute claim into last September's Iraq dossier.
"No I don't," she replied. "I felt there were significant differences between my reports and his reports."
"I felt the BBC was trying to mould my stories so they reached the same conclusions [as Gilligan]. That's why I sought independent legal advice. I'm most concerned about the fact there was an attempt to mould [my stories] so they corroborated [Gilligan's stories] which I felt was misguided and false," Watts said.
She described how at two separate meetings with her Newsnight editor, George Entwistle, on Monday June 30, with and the BBC's news director, Richard Sambrook, three days later, she had been pressed to reveal whether Dr Kelly was the source of the stories she broadcast at the start of that month.
Watts said she refused to name him because she felt she had a duty to protect his identity.
She changed her mind following Dr Kelly's appearance before the foreign affairs select committee on July 15.
"When he gave evidence to the foreign affairs select committee I formed the view that he would have relieved me of my duty of confidentiality to him and I would have revealed my source if I had been called before the committee," she added.
Watts said she took her decision when she read Dr Kelly's response to a committee question asking him directly whether he was the source of one of her Newsnight stories and he had responded: "No".
"It was hard to discern his response immediately but, when I saw the transcript the next day, he appeared to deny he was the source. This factor relieved me of my obligation to protect," she added.
She then revealed Dr Kelly's identity as her main source on Friday July 18, the day the weapons inspector's body was discovered near his Oxfordshire home.
That day she spent most of that day in a BBC news suite along with her solicitor and other BBC executives and journalists.
The day was spent working on the statement, published on Sunday July 20, in which the BBC finally admitted Dr Kelly was the source of its stories about the Iraq dossier.
"For the whole of that day I was in the news suite where that process was taking place. I sat separately, with my solicitor, from the other people involved in a separate room," Watts said.
"I wouldn't complain about that process. Everyone was very upset. But I was concerned it might appear that it was Dr Kelly's death that prompted me to reveal his identity," she added.
In a morning full of extraordinary revelations, Watts also accused Dr Kelly of being "less than frank" when he gave evidence to the FAC.
Watts said she viewed Dr Kelly's evidence to the committee on the internet and also read his transcript the following day.
In his evidence, Watts said, he appeared to distance himself from the quotes he had given her and which she had used in her broadcast.
She added: "On listening to that evidence... I would have felt he had relieved me of my obligation of confidentiality to him."
She insisted she did not name Dr Kelly because of his death but because of his evidence to the FAC.
The plot thickens...
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