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The BBC has issued a “full and unreserved apology” to four female former employees after admitting it did not do enough to protect them from a local radio presenter who was later jailed for stalking Jeremy Vine.
Alex Belfield, a former host on BBC Radio Leeds, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison in 2022 after being found guilty of waging a stalking campaign against four people, including Vine. The corporation has now said that it is “deeply sorry” to four women who had also been subjected to a campaign of abuse by Belfield over several years.
While Belfield was cleared of stalking Helen Thomas, Rozina Breen, Liz Green and Stephanie Hirst, the judge ruled they had been targeted by him in “a personal campaign of revenge”, leaving them all needing psychological support. Belfield was handed an indefinite restraining order preventing him from contacting the women.
The BBC said it failed to take earlier warnings from the women seriously enough. “People who work for the BBC are often in the public eye and under scrutiny, however, it is unacceptable for anyone to be the target of sustained abuse in the way that Rozina Breen, Elizabeth Green, Stephanie Hirst and Helen Thomas were over a number of years,” it said.
“We recognise that before 2019 we simply didn’t do enough for these members of staff in understanding the full impact that Alex Belfield’s unacceptable behaviour had on them. For that we are deeply sorry and offer a full and unreserved apology.”
The broadcaster said it had expanded its mental wellbeing resources for staff and strengthened its ability to launch internal investigations. “We are significantly better equipped to manage these issues now and in the future, but we will never be complacent,” it said.
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It comes with the BBC under serious pressure over how it manages staff and handles complaints. It has already admitted it “fell short and failed people” – including its own staff – after finding evidence of “bullying and misogynistic” behaviour by its former Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood.
Last year it apologised to the parents of a young person who made a complaint about the disgraced BBC presenter Huw Edwards, admitting it should have acted more quickly.
After the apology, received years after she first raised the alarm about Belfield, Green said his actions had meant that “fear becomes part of your life”.
“I expected the BBC to use available laws to stop it, for us to be listened to and taken care of,” she said. “For over a decade, that did not happen. They have apologised for that and say lessons have been learnt. Every employer needs to protect their staff. The four of us were high-profile women in the north. We have all subsequently left the BBC.”
Vine said the BBC was right to apologise to the women, adding that they had initially been told to “ignore and delete” thousands of abusive emails. “The advice should have been ‘log and keep’,” he said. “Because of this bad advice, incriminating material which might have increased Belfield’s five and a half-year jail term was lost to the court.
“The BBC began to take the case seriously only when [former director general] Tony Hall and [current director general] Tim Davie took charge. I hope this statement from the BBC (and any compensation) helps these four survivors put this awful case behind them.”
