Senior BBC managers are today bracing themselves for the publication of an eagerly anticipated report into their handling of the Jimmy Savile and Lord McAlpine controversies.
The BBC Trust will publish the findings of former Sky News head Nick Pollard at noon today, the results of which could see some of the corporations top brass lose their jobs – or end up badly tarnished.
It is expected that the report will name those who wielded the axe on a putative investigation into Jimmy Savile’s sex crimes. Amongst those whose careers currently hang in the balance are those of Helen Boaden, the BBC’s head of News, her deputy Steve Mitchell and Newsnight editor Peter Rippon.
In addition the Trust will also publish the findings of a separate review into the circumstances leading up to the erroneous identification of a Tory peer as a paedophile came to be broadcast.
This could see Peter Johnston, the director of BBC Northern Ireland and Adrian van Klaveren, sacked.