LONDON — Institutional chaos and confusion — but not a cover-up — were to blame for the BBC’s disastrous handling of pedophilia allegations involving one of its best-known children’s television personalities, an internal review found Wednesday.
The review absolved BBC executives of trying to bury a potentially embarrassing story, saying that weak management and poor leadership were to blame for the fact that a planned expose about the late TV star, Jimmy Savile, never aired.
When the rival ITV network broadcast a similar expose in October about Savile, who died in 2011 at age 84, the BBC came under fire for both harboring an alleged serial sex abuser for decades and for killing its own story about him.
The internal review, carried out by former Sky News television boss Nick Pollard, said the BBC was thrown into disarray when allegations that Savile was a serial sex predator were made public, taking more than a month to get a handle on the situation.