Piers Morgan has compared BBC’s Tim Davie to The Office UK character David Brent.
The BBC is facing major scrutiny over allegations a presenter paid £35,000 for explicit photos of a teenager.
While the presenter has not been named, the broadcaster has suspended the male TV star after reports he paid the unknown person the substantial figure over the course of three years, starting from when they were aged 17. The person has said that there was no wrongdoing and that the reports are ‘rubbish’.
Director-general Davie has faced questioning over the running of the broadcaster, with Morgan mocking his answers and his overseeing of the BBC on his show on Tuesday.
On Tuesday’s episode, Morgan played a clip of Davie being questioned on BBC Radio 4, and compared it to the famous character, played by Ricky Gervais, who struggled to run the office in the sitcom.
Morgan asked if Davie was ‘up to the task of running the BBC,’ as Davie had not ‘met or spoken’ to the ‘star presenter’ at the centre of the scandal.
The scandal was ‘decimating the reputation of the entire BBC,’ the former Good Morning Britain presenter went on.
‘And he seems determined to fight fire with what frankly often sounds like David Brent-style management psycho-babble.’
It then cut to a clip of Davie praising the BBC’s ‘outstanding corporate investigations team who are very experienced,’ with Morgan asking: ‘Really? Outstanding?’
In the same interview with BBC Radio 4, Davie had claimed ‘everyone in this building knows who it is’ when it came to the identity of the presenter.
He revealed he still has not spoken to the presenter accused and admitted the scandal has been ‘clearly damaging’ to the corporation’s reputation.
A second person has since come fireward with allegations against the unnamed presenter, claiming they were contacted by the man on a dating app and pressured to meet up.
When they refused, the presenter allegedly sent them a number of ‘threatening messages’, which the BBC says it has seen and confirmed came from a phone number belonging to the presenter.
The BBC is reporting that a police force has confirmed it was contacted by the parents of the young person concerned with the first set of allegations against the unnamed presenter.
They got in touch back in April – a month before a complaint was first raised against the broadcaster, it added.
The force in question said ‘no criminality was identified’, but ‘as a result of recent developments, further enquiries are ongoing to establish whether there is evidence of a criminal offence’.
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