The Home of Common Sense. This is Talk.

Let's talk to Robin Eakken, the former BBC journalist's author of Can We Trust the BBC and The Nobel Liar.

Robin, a very good morning to you.

Ronnie to you, Mike.

Thank you very much indeed for joining us.

We've actually got some questions for the BBC, and I'm going to put them to you, if I may, shortly before I ask you to answer them. I'm just going to run through them. We've got five questions for the BBC, and I'm going to put them to you, if I may, shortly before I ask you to answer them.

I'm just going to run through them. We've got five questions for the BBC. One, who at the BBC

knew or was made aware that Hugh Edwards had been arrested in November? Two, did those individuals

raise this to the editorial guidelines and standards committee within the BBC? Three, did the editorial guidelines and standards committee discuss Hugh Edwards' arrest for serious offences?

Four, was BBC management consciously aware it was still paying Hugh Edwards' six-figure salary

with licence fee payers' money after his arrest in November?

And five, were any attempts made by management to

terminate Hugh Edwards' contract and salary following knowledge of the arrest in November.

I don't know where to begin really here, but it would seem that those are all pretty valid

questions. I'm assuming that Lisa Nandy might ask those questions to Tim Davy when she sees him today.

But it's quite a remarkable state of affairs, isn't it? It is. And those are very good questions.

The thing is, I suppose, and I'm not an employment lawyer, obviously. But I would think, Mike, that although I think BBC has questions to answer, and maybe there

has been incompetence in BBC management, I also think that probably the employment contract of someone like Hugh Edwards would have been pretty watertight.

And we do have to, we have to say, don't we, and you and I am sure would agree, that innocent until proven guilty is the proper course of procedure with anyone who's who's

accused of anything um so it's a caught that this is a very complex area actually because the

BBC I suppose and I'm only guessing yeah but I imagine they couldn't sack him on the basis even if it's being charged because, you know, he was not at that point a guilty man.

I do think that the question of his payment should have been better handled. I think it would have been much better if the BBC had said, for instance, look, we'll

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