The BBC is facing new questions about why it delayed reporting that a group of Syrian men had been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Newcastle.
Heat Street can reveal that the BBC Newsnight programme first knew of the arrests more than three weeks before it broadcast the story, fuelling claims of a cover-up.
Although a BBC spokesman has repeatedly denied that the Corporation deliberately “sat on” the story, Northumbria Police – which arrested those alleged to have carried out the assault – has now confirmed it informed the BBC of the arrests 22 days before Newsnight aired a word about them.
The disclosure is likely to put pressure on Newsnight, which in 2011 infamously shelved a report revealing that Jimmy Savile sexually abused several schoolgirls in the 1970s.
It will also increase suspicions that some parts of the media are unwilling to report stories which they believe might be politically sensitive and could cause unrest between immigrants and the rest of the public, as allegedly happened in Germany and Sweden in January.
The background to Newsnight’s delayed report is that as part of a long-term project it began profiling a Syrian family – including 18-year-old Omar Badreddin – who moved to the UK from Jordan in November 2015 under the British government’s resettlement programme.
Newsnight broadcast its first film about Badreddin’s family in December 2015.
On May 10 Northumbria Police received a report that two teenage girls had been sexually assaulted in Leazes Park in Newcastle.
The next day, May 11, four people – including a youth aged 16 or 17 – were arrested for the alleged offence against one of the girls. Badreddin was among the accused.
The other two men who can be named are Mohammad Allakkoud, 18, and Mohammed Alfrouh, 20.
All four deny the charge.
One of the group – Alfrouh – was also accused of sexually assaulting the second girl aged 14, which he also denies.
The men first appeared at Newcastle Crown Court on May 18.
They appeared there again on Friday June 10, when they were bailed to appear on September 26.
Not a word of this was publicised by Northumbria Police or the Crown Prosecution Service, leading many to conclude the story had been deliberately hushed up.
However, Northumbria Police has now told Heat Street that on May 19 it did confirm to Newsnight that the arrests had been made.
It is understood that the story was then discussed at the highest levels of the BBC, up to and including BBC news chief James Harding.
But for reasons which remain unclear, Newsnight opted not to report the arrests for a further three weeks.
No other BBC news programme reported the arrests either.
It was only on June 10 – the day of the second crown court appearance of the accused – that Newsnight referred to the arrests in a 3-minute report.
The next day, June 11, the BBC also posted an online news story about the arrests. It includes Newsnight’s report.
When Heat Street asked the BBC earlier this week on what date it was first aware of Badreddin’s arrest, a spokesman refused to comment.
The spokesman would only say: “Newsnight has led on the reporting of this story and any suggestion that the programme sat on it is palpably ludicrous. The story was aired at the first point we knew the full details of the case when pleas were entered in court on Friday [June 10]. The programme was not aware of the allegations against Omar Badreddin at the time of his first court appearance in May so could not have covered it then.”
But a Northumbria Police spokesman contradicted this.
He told Heat Street: “[We first entered into discussions about the issue with the BBC] when we became aware the BBC had footage of one of the charged men which was to be broadcast. We informed the BBC [of the arrests] on the 19th May.”
Conservative MP Philip Davies said: “One can only speculate on why this wasn’t reported by the BBC sooner. Perhaps it didn’t fit its political agenda or maybe its journalists aren’t very good. People must draw their own conclusions, but it doesn’t smell very good.”