Only The Sun this morning says that the BBC has made a 'settlement' with, as well as an apology to, four women harassed at work by Alex Belfield. The judge decided in their case, that his activity fell short of stalking, but Belfield was handed an indefinite restraining order preventing him from contacting the women.
Belfield is due out on licence in June; the four - Liz Green, Rozina Breen, Helen Thomas and Stephanie Hirst - have all left the BBC. Liz Green said last night: ""The effects of stalking are that fear becomes part of your life. I expected the BBC to use available laws to stop it, for us to be listened to and taken care of. For over a decade, that did not happen. They have apologised for that and say lessons have been learnt. Every employer needs to protect their staff. The four of us were high-profile women in the North. We have all subsequently left the BBC."
It's right that the BBC apologise for its early responses when women at BBC Leeds were targeted by the criminal stalker Alex Belfield. They were told to “ignore and delete” his thousands of abusive emails, when actually the advice should have been “log and keep”. Because of this…
— Jeremy Vine | thejeremyvine.bsky.social (@theJeremyVine) March 12, 2025
Serious question: do BBC managers get training in how to deal with serious allegations like this? I mean, you'd think that, even just going by common sense & average levels of empathy, more would have been done. But BBC managers seem to go into what I can only imagine they think is 'damage limitation mode', caring more about the BBC's reputation than their employees' health, when in fact it makes the damage to the BBC worse, and for the complainants, is simply justice limitation mode.
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