Radio host quits after BBC ‘threw him to the lions’ in Marine A row
A VETERAN radio host has quit the BBC after it ruled he breached impartiality by speaking in favour of Sergeant Alexander Blackman.
Richard Spendlove, 78, has nearly 30 years’ experience, having started his Saturday night phone-in show on local radio in 1989.
The programme was thought to be one of the longest running phone-in shows and saw him awarded an MBE in 2000 for services to radio.
But the broadcaster left his post with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire earlier this year, claiming the Corporation ‘threw him to the lions’ when it upheld a complaint over his handling of an on-air discussion about the plight of Sergeant Blackman.
The Royal Marine, known as Marine A, was jailed for a minimum of ten years for killing a wounded Taliban fighter in 2011. He was released in April after a campaign led by his wife and backed by Daily Mail readers.
During a show in December 2013, Spendlove had invited listeners to talk about the sentencing of the Marine. The presenter insists that he never put forward his opinion but one listener complained that he had used it to campaign on behalf of Sergeant Blackman.
The complaint was upheld by the BBC, which found Spendlove guilty of ‘serious failings’.
During the show Spendlove had urged listeners who felt strongly about the sentencing of Sergeant Blackman to write to their MPs and also said British troops ‘shouldn’t be [in Afghanistan] in the first place’. The BBC’s editorial stand-
‘Appallingly treated’
ards committee concluded that he had committed ‘clear breaches of standards of impartiality’.
It found he ‘led his audience to believe that he considered the sentence passed on the Marine to have been too harsh’ and that it was ‘wholly inappropriate’ to encourage listeners to write to their MPs.
Spendlove was then put under constant editorial supervision, which he said was ‘an embarrassment’. He added: ‘I had a student supervising me for a while, and then a clerk from the BBC offices, while I was sat there with decades of experience.
‘I was never given any kind of hearing or allowed to put my points forward. They say that I supported the soldier but that is a lie – I never said anything of the sort.
‘I wasn’t allowed an appeals process either, I was just told over the phone what had happened. After two years of supervision I turned to my wife and said: “I can’t do this any more”.’
Spendlove’s last Saturday night phone-in show aired on May 6 this year. He said: ‘ They have thrown me to the lions – they have ruined me. I was so appallingly treated.
‘They will say that I chose to leave but I was put in a position where I just couldn’t stay any longer.’
A BBC Trust document on the 2013 complaint states: ‘There had been clear breaches of standards of impartiality. The presenter had acted as though he had been unaware that he should not have been using the programme as a vehicle for his own opinions.’
A BBC spokesman said: ‘ After a BBC Trust finding on a serious breach of editorial standards on Mr Spendlove’s show we introduced their recommended measures to ensure it would not happen again.’