New meddling storm as Yentob pressures Radio 4 over Kids Co

The BBC faced fresh calls to sack Alan Yentob last night after damaging new claims emerged about his meddling in the Corporation’s news coverage. He lobbied a Radio 4 presenter who was about to broadcast a report on the failed Kids Company charity, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Mr Yentob, who was chairman of the charity, ‘overstepped the mark’ by phoning Ed Stourton just 45 minutes before he was due on air.

Sources said the BBC creative director was ‘spinning his line’, and trying to influence the direction of the programme.

Mr Yentob was already under scrutiny for writing a ‘hysterical’ letter to ministers about the charity’s cash crisis. As the organisation was negotiating with the Government for an extra £ 3million funding, he warned of rioting, arson attacks and ‘savagery’ if Kids Company was forced to close.

But when Radio 4 current affairs programme The World At One invited Mr Yentob to defend his position in public, he refused. Instead, he went behind the scenes to pressure presenter Mr Stourton – calling him directly from his mobile.

A well-placed source said: ‘He’s overstepped the mark. People are starting to see it as part of a pattern.’ The World At One report included a damning interview with Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, who described Mr Yentob’s £330,000-a-year position at the BBC as untenable.

The clip was prerecorded, so the late intervention was limited anyway.

However, BBC insiders are furious that the powerful executive should even try to apply pressure and one called for him to go. ‘He’s just embarrassing the BBC. Why doesn’t [director-general] Tony Hall recognise that he is doing a lot of damage?’ said the source.

Mr Yentob has already come under attack for intervening in the BBC’s coverage of Kids Company. In July he telephoned Newsnight bosses who investigated the failed charity’s mismanaged finances.

He turned up uninvited to a Today programme interview with charity founder Camilla Batmanghelidjh, and launched a verbal attack on BBC correspondent Lucy Manning at the Corporation’s London headquarters.

Even though BBC director general Lord Hall has admitted that Mr Yentob has put pressure on staff, he insists there has been no wrongdoing.

A BBC spokesman added: ‘In his role as chairman [Mr Yentob] can speak directly to media outlets and got in touch with the programme to explain the charity’s position.’

The fact that the BBC broke the story about itself shows it was ‘impartial’, he said.