BBC did not spot Sachs complaint for three days

The complaint sent by Andrew Sachs’s agent to the BBC in the wake of the Brand/Ross lewd phonecall was not spotted for three days, the BBC Trust said in a report today.

Sachs’s agent Meg Poole emailed an official complaint to then Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas on the evening of Thursday, October 23, after being contacted by the Mail on Sunday.

On the subject of toning the section down, she said in the email: “...if anything was cut, a very large amount was left in, and they ran the ’joke’ for an astonishingly long time.

“I cannot believe that Radio 2 or the BBC could possibly be proud of this, and I hope you will find your way to issuing an unreserved apology to Andrew Sachs, who was asked to contribute to the programme under false pretences, and then found both his family and himself being treated by the stars and the producer with complete contempt.”

In the absence of a response, the next day Ms Poole converted the text of her email into a letter and posted it to the BBC.

Around the same time, the Mail on Sunday’s reporter called a Radio 2 publicist and said he understood Sachs had complained.

The publicist contacted the producer, head of compliance and the controller, all of whom were not aware of the complaint.

Russell Brand’s company Vanity Projects was informed and the publicist told the reporter that the BBC was unaware of a complaint from Sachs.

The Trust’s report said: “Throughout the period of the Mail on Sunday’s enquiries, no-one contacted Andrew Sachs or his agent to clarify whether or not he had complained, nor is there any evidence that anyone reviewed the original programme to establish whether or not Mr Sachs might have grounds for a complaint.

“The controller told us that at this point she still assumed the programme had been listened to in its entirety.”

On the evening of Saturday, October 25, there was discussion before Brand’s live show about whether or not to mention the Mail on Sunday’s interest.

Brand said he wanted to apologise, but the producer said he told him to be careful.

Later in the programme Brand re-played his song of “apology” in which he repeated the claim to have slept with Sachs’s granddaughter.

The actions in this show “reflected a lack of direct control by BBC Radio 2 over an independent production company” the report said.

Shortly before the end of the programme the producer said he was “horrified” to receive an online version of the Mail on Sunday’s story – and decided not to show Brand as he was concerned about his live on air reaction, the report said.

That evening, Douglas texted the director of audio and music saying no complaint had been made from Sachs and his management “as far as we are aware”.

The station’s head of communications also sent a note saying: “Mail story not good.”

That night the Mail on Sunday splashed on the story.

The following morning, the press office maintained that the BBC was unaware of any complaint.

In the early evening of Sunday October 26, Douglas went to her office to check her email for any complaint – and found the message from Ms Poole.

That evening she circulated an email with the complaint saying: “I have been advised not to send a reply but to deal with it through the official complaints procedure.”

She said in the email that she was not around that week but others were “across it”.

Jonathan Ross is set to keep his job as a BBC presenter, despite the row, after the corporation’s governing body today agreed the “right action” had been taken against him.