Gavyn Davies to resign as chairman of BBC governors

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, January 29, 2004

Gavyn Davies to resign as chairman of BBC governors

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Gavyn Davies was to resign as the chairman of the BBC governors, the British Sky News reported on Wednesday as British senior judge Lord Brian Hutton published his report on the inquiry into events leading to the death of government weapons expert David Kelly.

Spokesman for the network would not immediately confirm the report, which came shortly after the broadcaster apologized over "certain key allegations" in the Kelly affair.

In a short statement shortly after the Hutton report was published, the BBC said it accepted that the claim in BBC reports that the government "sexed up" its dossier on Iraq's weapons was wrong.

However, the broadcaster stressed that it had never accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of lying and it would consider Hutton's findings carefully.

Hutton delivered his long-waited findings on the death of Kellyearlier in the day, clearing the government of embellishing the September 2002 weapons dossier with intelligence it thought was unreliable.

In his report, the law lord ruled that Kelly took his own life and the government led by Blair did not have "dishonorable" or "underhand" strategy to leak Kelly's name to the media.

However, Hutton criticized the BBC's checks before the broadcast of the claims in the report of Andrew Gilligan, the BBC defense reporter who said in last May that Downing Street had ordered the "sexing up" of the government dossier to make a stronger case for the US-led Iraq war.

The BBC's editorial system was "defective" as Gilligan was allowed to broadcast serious allegations without approving his scripts, Hutton said, adding that the BBC did not properly investigate the government's complaints and its governors should have realized this was not incompatible with their duty to protect the corporation's independence.

The Hutton report came more than six months after Kelly, 59, had apparently took his own life days after appeared before a televised Commons select committee last July about the Gilligan report.

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