BBC may face vote-rigging probe

The BBC could face a vote-rigging investigation after it emerged a ‘Blue Peter’ competition winner’s father is a programming chief at the broadcaster.

Florence Jackson beat 17,000 other entrants in a competition to design a new 50 pence coin to be issued at the time of the 2012 Olympics, run by the children’s show in conjunction with the Royal Mint.

It has since emerged that Florence’s father, Andrew Jackson is a former BBC reporter who is now head of the broadcaster’s Natural History Unit (NHU).

Andrew’s appointment to the unit was made on July 6, but he is not due to start work until the end of this month. The winning design was chosen from anonymous entries by a panel of judges on July 16.

The BBC denies any wrongdoing, saying entries for the competition had closed in March.

A spokesperson for the broadcaster told The Sun newspaper: “Any suggestion that anyone at the BBC could have had undue influence on the selection of the winning entry is totally wrong and without any foundation whatsoever.

"The competition closed in March, before any discussion between the NHU and Andrew Jackson. The eventual winner was selected as a finalist in May."

BBC guidelines say competitions are open to all UK residents, except those closely related to a BBC staff member or anyone involved in the competition.

When asked to clarify when, or if, Mr Jackson had told ‘Blue Peter’ about his relationship with competition winner Florence, nine, a BBC spokesman told the Daily Mail newspaper: “We have no reason to believe Blue Peter knew before last week.”

David Turtle, spokesman for Mediawatch UK, is calling for a full investigation into the ‘Blue Peter’ Olympic coin competition.

He said: "Broadcasters have a duty to make competitions fair and balanced and this doesn't look good at all for ‘Blue Peter’.

"Even though she was eligible to enter the competition there should be a review of the procedures to find out how it was allowed to happen.

"We are calling on the BBC to conduct a full investigation of the matter and see if the criticism is justified."

The coin judging panel included representatives from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee and the Royal Mint- there was one BBC representative on the 11-strong panel judging the entries.

‘Blue Peter’ has previously been accused of misleading viewers, with it being revealed the programme’s production team had rigged an online poll to name the show’s cat, Socks.

The BBC was also fined £50,000 by Ofcom after staff on the programme had encouraged a girl visiting the studio to pose as the winner of a competition for the charity Unicef.

‘Blue Peter’ also admitted in 2007 it had used child actors to pose as competition winners.