BBC ‘sorry for Cliff distress’... but not for filming raid
THE BBC said sorry to Sir Cliff Richard yesterday but stood by a controversial decision to broadcast a search of his home.
Live pictures from a helicopter of police raiding Sir Cliff’s apartment caused him great distress.
The officers were probing false allegations of historic sex abuse.
Sir Cliff, 75, endured nearly two years of anxiety before the drawnout inquiry was dropped last week.
In a hard-hitting interview published yesterday, he said he feared the stress would kill him and his health has been seriously affected. Corporation chiefs issued a semi-apology but defended the broadcast of the raid on Sir Cliff’s £3million flat, near Sunningdale, Berks, in August 2014.
It said: “The BBC is very sorry Sir Cliff Richard, who has worked for so many years with the organisation, has suffered distress. The BBC’s responsibility is to report fully stories in the public interest.
“Police investigations into prominent figures in public life are, of course, squarely in the public interest, which is why they have been reported by all news organisations. Once South Yorkshire Police confirmed the investigation and Sir Cliff Richard’s identity and informed the BBC of the timing and details of the search, it would neither have been editorially responsible nor in the public interest to choose not to report fully the investigation because of his public profile.
“The BBC, at every stage, reported Sir Cliff’s full denial.
“The BBC, therefore, stands by the decision to report the investigation undertaken by police and the search of his property.”
Scotland Yard handed inquiries to South Yorkshire Police after a man accused the singer of assaulting him at a Billy Graham evangelical rally in Sheffield in 1985. Other complainants included a convicted sex attacker and a man who tried to blackmail the singer in the past.
The £800,000 probe was officially closed last week when the Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
Sir Cliff consistently denied any wrongdoing and says there was no evidence. He says the broadcast left him hung out “like live bait”. His friends want the CPS to issue a public declaration of innocence.
Sir Cliff’s pre-recorded interview with Susanna Reid was scheduled to be shown today on ITV’S Good Morning Britain.