The BBC is understood to have submitted its controversial coverage of the police raid on Sir Cliff Richard’s home for the scoop of the year prize at this year’s Royal Television Society journalism awards. The BBC’s exclusive coverage of the raid on the singer’s £3.5m Berkshire home prompted accusations that the corporation was participating in a witch hunt and behaving like the worst tabloid newspapers. South Yorkshire police were investigating allegations of historic sexual abuse, accusations which Richard has dismissed as “completely false”.
The BBC’s coverage from a helicopter hovering over the singer’s house – which looked live, but wasn’t – prompted the mother of all rows with the South Yorkshire force and an inquiry by Labour MP Keith Vaz’s House of Commons home affairs select committee. However, the MPs found the coppers at fault (“utterly inept”) rather than the BBC. But if James Harding’s BBC News operation does win at next month’s ceremony, we don’t want to be the one to tell Michael Parkinson, who said the coverage “would have done the red-tops credit”.
