Complaint will be properly pursued – Chairman, BBC

Lord Chris Patten, Chairman of BBC Trust, says he that will ensure that a complaint made by the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines is properly pursued through the BBC complaints process.{{more}}

In a letter to Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Lord Patten stated that the Trust was the sovereign body of the BBC and its principal strategic authority.

“However, the Trust’s role is distinct from that of the BBC’s management and it has no responsibility for day-to-day editorial decisions or operational matters,” the letter, dated February 27, indicated.

Prime Minister Gonsalves, on February 22, wrote to the BBC Board of Trustees complaining about what he termed “unprofessional conduct” of BBC journalists Paul Kenyon and Matthew Hill.

In his letter, the prime minister said on February 17, on a LIAT aircraft which had landed in Barbados en route from St Vincent, he was approached by the two journalists who failed to identify themselves.

The prime minister said Kenyon approached him and in a statement, followed by a query, alleged that he (Gonsalves) had accepted a bribe from David Ames, who heads Harlequin Company.

Gonsalves, in his letter to Lord Patten, indicated that Kenyon and his colleague arrived in St Vincent and the Grenadines on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 pursuing an investigation into Harlequin Properties and Mr Ames and had committed an immigration offence by making a false declaration.

“They declared on their Immigration Forms that they were entering St Vincent and the Grenadines as tourists. As we know it, they had come to my country to work,” Gonsalves wrote in the letter.

“Evidently the high standards usually associated with the BBC have been breached.”

And speaking at a press conference on Monday, Gonsalves said that persons wanting to treat him like a harum-scarum, third world leader were barking up the wrong tree.

“They pick on the wrong third world leader,” Gonsalves said.

“There are some who think that an arrogant, baronial, colonial power masquerading under the guise of investigative journalism can cower me?” he continued.

He included in the letter to Lord Patten that he was no less of a Prime Minister than a British Prime Minister, although he was from a small country.

“That, however, is no reason for your journalists to trample on the dignity of my country and its office-holders. Fairness, common courtesy and respect are eternal virtues,” the letter stated.

Lord Patten, in his response, indicated that the Trust has a role in the BBC complaints process, but at the final stage, when complaints are appealed.

The Chairman said that he would pass on the prime minister’s letter to Acting Director-General and Editor-in-Chief of the BBC, with the promise that the Editor-in-Chief would get back to Gonsalves as soon as possible.