Bashir’s agent: I’m 99 per cent sure the BBC didn’t contact me over murdered Karen’s lost clothes
New claim undermines director general’s evidence to MPs – as Diana’s brother plans to meet Babes in Wood victim’s mother
SHAMED BBC journalist Martin Bashir’s agent is ‘99 per cent sure’ that the Corporation did not contact him during its search for clothes worn by a murdered schoolgirl that had been lost by the reporter.
The assertion by veteran showbusiness agent John Miles appears to undermine evidence about the ‘Babes in the Wood’ scandal given to MPs last week by the BBC’s director general Tim Davie.
Mr Davie was quizzed about the findings of an investigation by The Mail on Sunday that exposed how the BBC failed to carry out basic checks – including speaking directly to Bashir – when the family of Karen Hadaway asked for bloodied clothing that they had given to the journalist to be returned.
Mr Davie told the Commons Culture Select Committee that it was ‘incorrect’ that BBC investigators ‘did not make contact with the individuals who might have known where the clothing was’. He said the Corporation’s records showed Bashir was contacted ‘via an agent’.
But Mr Miles, who was Bashir’s agent at the time of the BBC investigation in 2004, told the MoS: ‘As far as I am concerned – and obviously it was a long time ago – they never made a call to me.
‘And if it was a call to me it would only be that they wanted to speak to Martin Bashir. I am absolutely 99 per cent sure they never ever made any call to me. I certainly can’t remember the BBC contacting me, so I’m pretty sure they didn’t.’
Karen and Nicola Fellows, both aged nine, were murdered in Brighton in 1986 in what became known as the Babes in the Wood killings. It wasn’t until 2018 that roofer
Russell Bishop was found guilty. In 1991, Bashir – who was then working for the BBC programme Public Eye – persuaded Karen’s grieving mother Michelle to hand over the clothes after promising to subject them to DNA tests in the hope of discovering new forensic clues about the children’s killer.
The family asked for them to be returned in 2004 so they could be given to Sussex Police, who were reviewing the case, only to be told they were missing. They have never been returned. At the time, the BBC said ‘extensive inquiries’ had been made to find them, but the MoS was told by key journalists who worked alongside Bashir, including his editor Nigel Chapman and assistant producer Charlie Beckett, that they were never contacted.
Mr Davie last week told MPs that the Corporation ‘have records that show Nigel Chapman… and an individual that can be identified as a producer, which is Charlie Beckett, were contacted during the 2004 investigation’.
Last night, a friend of Bashir claimed Karen’s clothing was lost after the reporter took it to a BBC ‘production office’. Public Eye was based at the Corporation’s offices in White City, West London.
‘He took it back to the BBC and gave it to the production office,’ the source said. ‘Now, he didn’t tell me who he gave it to – he says “I can’t remember” – but then afterwards, apparently, it went missing.
‘Martin said, “I certainly didn’t lose these clothes.” He is genuinely devastated that it happened.’ Earlier this year, Bashir conceded that he ‘may’ have lost the clothes, but added: ‘I don’t remember.’
The programme Bashir was working on was never broadcast and it doesn’t appear as if the clothes were ever tested.
The pressure on the BBC over the case is unlikely to abate. This newspaper understands that Earl Spencer, who exposed Bashir’s deception to land his notorious Panorama interview with his sister Princess Diana, has invited Ms Hadaway to a meeting at Althorp, the Spencer family home in Northamptonshire, this week.
The Corporation is also facing criticism over its failure to respond to a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request from this newspaper to provide any document related to the BBC’s 2004 investigation. Under the Act, the BBC had 20 working days to reply, but has not done so. Ms Hadaway said: ‘Why not release them? You only do things like this if you have got something to hide. It is appalling. If they are now saying that they did have an investigation back then, then why did they not bother to let me know?’
Nigel Heffron, an uncle of Nicola Fellows, said: ‘I think it’s outrageous. They should hand them over. It’s in the public interest. What are they hiding?’
The BBC’s stalling has echoes of the 13-year delay in publishing documents related to an internal inquiry held in 1996 into how Bashir landed the Diana interview. Channel 4 journalist Andy Webb first requested the doc
‘Martin said he certainly didn’t lose those clothes’
uments in 2007 but was told by the Corporation that they did not exist. In 2020 after another request, the BBC admitted that its earlier response had been ‘inaccurate’ and that notes and meeting minutes did in fact exist.
Last night, a BBC spokeswoman said: ‘Everything we have previously stated is correct. As we said last week, our records clearly show that Martin Bashir’s agent was contacted in 2004. And as we said at the Select Committee, we have recently discussed the clothing directly with Martin. Martin has consistently said that he doesn’t recall what happened to the clothes.’ On the FOI request, she said: ‘The BBC responds to around 95 per cent of requests on time. We are committed to transparency and publish more data and information on ourselves than any other broadcaster.’