The BBC has apologized and agreed to pay damages to the leaders of the LGBT news site PinkNews, acknowledging that "false and defamatory" allegations of sexual misconduct were made.
A program titled "PinkNews: Behind Closed Doors," added to iPlayer in December 2024, accused PinkNews founder Benjamin Cohen and his husband, chief operating officer Anthony James, of sexual misconduct toward junior staff.
At the High Court in London on Thursday, the BBC stated that the allegations were "serious, false and defamatory." The couple had initiated a libel claim against the broadcaster. Their legal team announced that the BBC would pay compensation to settle the action, with the couple intending to donate the funds to the Multiple Sclerosis Society and Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Charity.
The program is no longer available on iPlayer. The BBC also apologized for an article that included an additional allegation that the couple had exerted "inappropriate pressure on young, female members of staff to act as surrogates for them."
Reading a joint statement, the couple's barrister Lorna Skinner KC said the allegations were "false and extremely harmful to the claimants' reputations." She added that the program led to the couple facing additional investigations prior to a parental order hearing for their son, born via surrogacy. This caused "considerable anxiety and distress" during a period when they should have been focused on their newborn.
Mr. Cohen resigned as a trustee of a disability charity, and Dr. James resigned as a non-executive director of Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, citing the program as the reason.
Jane Phillips, representing the BBC, stated, "The BBC retracts and apologizes unreservedly for the defamatory allegations made in the programme and the article."
In a statement provided to the Press Association, Cohen and James said the BBC "ignored warnings about the veracity of these allegations and chose to broadcast false claims to millions of people." They described the period following the broadcast, when their son was six months old, as being thrown into "chaos." The couple stated that the false portrayal of them as engaging in sexual misconduct and pressuring female employees over surrogacy reinforced harmful homophobic tropes about gay men. They criticized the nearly two-year delay between the broadcast of the false allegations and the BBC's public acknowledgment that they were untrue.
"The BBC now owes licence fee payers an explanation of how such a serious failure could have occurred and what it intends to do to demonstrate that it remains fit for purpose," the couple added.
They concluded, "Nothing can give us back the time we have lost, nor undo the impact this has had on our family. But the record has now been set straight. The allegations were false. The BBC has retracted them in full and apologized unreservedly. Today, we can finally begin to move forward. The BBC, though, needs to carefully consider and learn from the impact that its reckless journalism has had on a young family's lives."