The head of news at BBC Asian Network has gone on trial after a reporter allegedly revealed the identity of a Rotherham sex-abuse victim live on air.
Arif Ansari, 43, was editor of the radio programme when a reporter covering the Rotherham case read the full name of a victim in a live broadcast outside Sheffield crown court, where he was reporting on the trial of her abuser on 6 February 2018.
The reporter said he believed the name to be a pseudonym, leading to the charge being brought against Ansari, said to have been sent the script beforehand.
On Thursday, the court heard that she panicked and began to “feel sick” after her identity was revealed. She had been listening to the broadcast when she heard her name read out.
The BBC criticised the decision to charge Ansari instead of the corporation when he was charged last year.
The prosecution argues that Ansari had read a script of the bulletin, which included the woman’s name, half an hour before it was broadcast and failed to raise a concern about its inclusion.
Giving evidence at Sheffield magistrates court, the reporter Rickin Majithia said he got confused between the woman’s real name and a pseudonym she regularly used.
Ansari, his producer on the day, is accused of breaching the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992, which entitles all complainants of sexual offences to lifelong anonymity. He denies the charge.
In the statement read to the court, the woman said: “I cannot believe this has happened to me. At this point I went into full meltdown – panicking and crying – and I didn’t hear anything else that was said.”
She said it had been hard enough to give evidence against her attackers, adding: “To then have my name given out as a victim of rape on a BBC radio station was unbelievable.”
Upon hearing her name read out, she contacted the National Crime Agency (NCA) and an investigation was launched.
In his evidence, Majithia said he had never reported on a court case before.
He realised his error 10 minutes after the broadcast when he received a call from Jayne Senior, a community worker in Rotherham.
The reporter said he drafted an email to the woman, apologising for the “genuine mistake” but it was not sent owing to advice from his superiors.
Majithia had previously met the woman when had been given both her real name and her pseudonym, and said he went on to confuse these during the report.
In the unsent email he said: “I had a number of different things going on in my head that afternoon and I made a human error. It was a moment of confusion I will regret for ever.”
He began to report the trial, involving a taxi driver who raped the woman when she was a teenager in Rotherham, during its second day.
He added that about half an hour before the broadcast he emailed Ansari a copy of the script he intended to read out, which the editor confirmed was fine to use.
Majithia said: “I was an inexperienced reporter; I had been on air for a year and much of the work I had done had not been live. I got confused between her name and the pseudonym. I falsely came to the conclusion that the name being used [in court] was a protective measure to protect her identity … I’m deeply, deeply sorry to the victim and her family.”
Majithia, who had been at the BBC for nine years, said he had been suffering from stress at workand that Ansari had been aware of this.
Neil Usher, prosecuting, said: “When he [Ansari] checked the script for the 5pm broadcast and realised the defendant’s name was being used, he should have checked which name was a pseudonym.”
Ansari argued that Majithia must “take responsibility” for the error. During a police interview he claimed Majithia knew there were reporting restrictions in place. In a statement to police, Ansari said: “I just thought he’s the one who knows this woman; he’s the one who’s been in court and he knows the restrictions.
“I was looking at the script for issues that concerned me and that [the name] was not one.”
He added: “You have to take responsibility for what you say.”
His statement also said there were likely to have been about 15,000 people listening to the station at the time of the bulletin.
An NCA officer said she told Majithia he was not allowed to name the victim in his report just hours before he did. She was in court in her capacity as an NCA official and saw Majithia when he arrived to report on the case.
On Thursday, Trevor Burke QC, representing Ansari , presented evidence showing the name of the victim on Majithia’s script was spelled incorrectly and also mispronounced by the reporter during the broadcast.
This, Burke argued, meant the name broadcast was not actually that of the victim and therefore she was not identified.
With five minutes to go in the first day of the two-day trial, the far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, entered the courtroom.
District judge Naomi Redhead allowed the Ukip political adviser to stay.
