Pollard report into the BBC's Savile inquiry show Jeremy Paxman to be hugely critical of the way The BBC treated its then Newsnight editor Peter Rippon. In a set of transcripts, Paxman said he had a "suspicion" Mr Rippon was told he couldn't run the story by someone else within the organisation.

In a fascinating insight, Paxman said it was "very unfair, and frankly not at all untypical, that the BBC has dumped all this on one individual [Rippon]. I think the BBC's behaviour now is almost as contemptible was it was then." Rippon wrote a blog back in early October, in which he gave his reasons for dropping the programme. It was later described as "inaccurate or incomplete in some respects" by the BBC. "He [Rippon] ws being used as the fall guy ... I profoundly disagree with the BBC's refusal to engage with it and to justify or attempt to justify its position,” said Paxman.

Sky news' Nick Pollard compiled the full report, which itself comprises 3,000 pages of emails, interviews and submissions from BBC executives and journalists. The Pollard Review, which concluded in December, surmised that the decision by the BBC's flagship current affairs programme to shelve its probe into sexual abuse claims against the television star was "seriously flawed".