ANOTHER day, another BBC apology and more evidence of crass ineptitude. The sacking of Scott Mills – one of the corporation’s highest-paid (£359,000 per annum) and highest-profile DJs – exposes massive incompetence and even dishonesty at the heart of the BBC that it seems incapable or unwilling to resolve.
First the chronology. The alleged serious sexual offences about which Mills was questioned by police date back almost 30 years to the period between 1997 and 2000. They involved a boy under the age of 16 and were formally reported in 2016. Mills was interviewed under caution in 2018. A file was passed to prosecutors but no charges were brought. The case was closed in 2019 on the grounds of insufficient evidence. These facts were not widely publicised at the time and seemingly not reported in the press.
The precise nature of the alleged offences has never been publicly detailed, and more recent references to ‘inappropriate communications’ are not clearly linked to the original allegations.
Now place alongside that another fact. Mills was not a marginal figure at the corporation. He had worked for the BBC since 1998 in a variety of roles. He was elevated in 2024 to one of the most prominent slots in British radio, taking over the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show from Zoe Ball. His appointment came in the same broad period when the corporation was engulfed in the fallout from the Huw Edwards affair: a moment, it could be assumed, of heightened sensitivity to risk.
In that context, it is scarcely credible to suggest that the BBC was unaware of the historical allegations when it made the decision to promote him. If it carried out even basic due diligence – as any organisation surely would for such a flagship role – those facts would have been visible. Which leads to the unavoidable conclusion: the BBC knew, assessed the situation, and judged that Mills was fit for such a role.
That was its judgement then. Now, abruptly, he is gone.
What has changed? The BBC does not say. Instead, it falls back on the wearyingly familiar language of institutional evasion – ‘we are investigating’, ‘we should have followed up’, ‘we apologise’. These phrases do not wash or command credibility; they are mechanisms of containment.
What now compounds the concern is that it seems the BBC was explicitly alerted to potential issues long before this story broke into the open. According to the Daily Telegraph, journalist Anna Brees contacted the corporation in May last year to relay information she had received about alleged ‘inappropriate communications’ involving Mills and asked whether the broadcaster was ‘ever aware of or involved in any related matters’. She did not receive a response. Only now, with the affair public, has the BBC admitted that her information ‘should have been followed up’ and that further questions ought to have been asked, adding yet another apology to its growing list of institutional regrets.
The BBC may argue that the information supplied was limited, or that it did not relate to the same allegations that had previously been investigated by police. But that rather misses the point. Here was a clear external warning, from a credible source, delivered directly to the corporation. It was not acted upon. It was not even acknowledged. If it was serious enough to merit follow-up – as the BBC now concedes – why was that follow-up not undertaken at the time?
This is where the ambiguity about the allegations becomes central. Because if the claims are sufficiently clear and substantiated enough to justify dismissal, why did they not prevent Mills’s promotion? And if they were not, what has altered? No new legal finding has been announced. No fresh evidential threshold has been publicly crossed. Instead, what appears to have changed is the level of exposure. The story is now in the open, pursued by newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and the Sun, and the BBC has been forced to respond.
This is the same pattern of obfuscation that has played out repeatedly in the annals of BBC hook-wriggling, from Jimmy Savile to Huw Edwards, and in the Princess Diana interview scandal. Warning signs emerged. Questions were raised. The BBC high command hesitated. Only when external pressure seemingly becomes irresistible does it act, accompanied, invariably, by a press office apology for not having acted sooner.
The deeper issue is structural. The BBC does not operate with a clear, consistently applied threshold for action. It is its own judge and jury on such matters. When under pressure, it appears to oscillate between two standards: a legal one, which it relies upon when it wishes to justify inaction, and a reputational one, which it invokes when inaction becomes untenable. The transition between the two is never explained. It simply happens, abruptly, clumsily and without transparency.
That is why each new case feels almost sinister. The corporation is not learning in any meaningful sense because it is not confronting the core question: on what basis does it judge its staff? Until that question is answered openly, every decision will appear arbitrary, and every apology will ring hollow.
In the end, the Mills affair is not primarily about the allegations themselves, serious though they were. It is about the BBC’s inability – or refusal – to explain its own behaviour in relation to them. An organisation that is supposedly an exemplar of integrity routinely crudely obfuscates rather than coming clean. It thus cannot expect to command public trust. And yet, once again, it seems to believe that a brief apology and a promise to ‘look into’ what went wrong will suffice. It most definitely does not.
Tim Davie formally stood down as Director General yesterday after five and a half years at the helm. The man who pledged to sort out BBC impartiality on day one of his role will perhaps instead be remembered for his failures to ensure BBC accountability and transparency on a growing raft of issues. Will Matt Brittin, who takes up the DG post in May after a brief interregnum, fare any better? Don’t count on it: the rot is institutional.
