BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan resigns

9.30am


LONDON - The man at the centre of the Hutton inquiry, BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, has resigned after his story that the government "sexed up" the risk of Iraq's weapons was criticised as unfounded.

The BBC and Gilligan were roundly chastised by the inquiry into the suicide of government weapons expert David Kelly last July, who was unmasked as the source of Gilligan's radio report.

Gilligan said in a statement: "I am today resigning from the BBC. I and everyone else involved here have for five months admitted the mistakes we made. We deserved criticism.

"Some of my story was wrong, as I admitted at the inquiry, and I again apologise for it. My departure is at my own initiative. But the BBC collectively has been the victim of a grave injustice."

His is the third resignation from the BBC over the inquiry, which lambasted BBC management procedures as "defective". Director General Greg Dyke resigned on Thursday and chairman of the board of governors Gavyn Davies stepped down just hours after Lord Hutton's report on Wednesday.

But Gilligan went down fighting, saying in a statement: "If Lord Hutton had fairly considered the evidence he heard, he would have concluded that most of my story was right. The government did sex up the dossier, transforming possibilities and probabilities into certainties, removing vital caveats."

Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street office said it had no comment on his resignation.

LOGGERHEADS

Blair's foes, many commentators and large parts of the public were bewildered at the wholesale bill of health Hutton handed the government compared with his censure of the BBC.

The government and the BBC had been at loggerheads over Gilligan's report since it was aired last year. The organisation apologised unreservedly on Thursday and Blair declared an end to the feud.

Earlier on Friday, Dyke said he did not accept much of Hutton's report and that he could have stayed if the BBC's board of governors had backed him.

"I don't accept all of it," Dyke told BBC radio. "I, others at the BBC, certainly our legal team, were all very surprised by the nature of the report."

Opinion polls in three newspapers on Friday and accusations of a whitewash suggested there may yet be a political price to pay for Blair.

An ICM poll in the Guardian showed Blair's trust rating down two points at minus 17, and support for the invasion of Iraq to counter the threat of still-undiscovered chemical and biological weapons had fallen six points in a week to 47 per cent.

A Populus poll in the Times indicated public trust in both Blair and the BBC had fallen almost equally and a YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph showed 52 per cent of their sample thought Blair had behaved improperly.

"The poll figures...do give rise to very considerable concern, I think, among everybody involved in political life," said senior government minister Lord Falconer.

- REUTERS

Andrew Gilligan, BBC reporter:
Full text: Resignation statement

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