| | | This was the key point that I did not know in law until the Hutton Report was published.
But I sure knew it was the only approach that made any sense.
The BBC should have known both.
From the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/report/chapter08.htm
- I am unable to accept, in the context of Mr Gilligan's broadcasts, the distinction which he and the BBC rely on, between a report that the BBC believed that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong and a report that a source had told the BBC that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong. This is not a distinction recognised by the law in relation to actions for defamation. In relation to some spheres of public life on which the BBC reports it may be permissible to report what an anonymous but apparently credible source had said. But I consider that when a charge of such gravity is made, as that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong, the impression created in the mind of the listener and the harm done to confidence in the integrity of the Government differs little whether the allegation is made directly by the BBC or is reported by the BBC as an allegation made by an apparently credible and well informed source.
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