Hot and bothered

Things have been getting heated down at the Employment Tribunal in Kingsway hearing Samira Ahmed v The BBC.

In evidence, Samira described a recent Newswatch interview she'd done with Head of Newsgathering Jonathan Munro, saying that after the recording he had “turned on me for asking a question he didn’t like and then wrongly claimed I’d accused the BBC political editor Kuenssberg of being racist... The studio crew were shocked by his behaviour and told me so."

“The BBC press officer present to watch the recording sent me an email after saying it had got a bit ‘heated’ and she hoped I would have a nice weekend; clearly a veiled admission that he had behaved inappropriately. I remember telling my editor that, frankly, I should get ‘danger money’ for having bosses attempt to intimidate me this way and Jon Munro had behaved in a similar way in 2014.”

In a remark that fans of Jeremy Vine will find a bit rich, Samira expressed 'regret' that he'd been dragged into the case. She described phone conversations with Jezzer; he'd said it wasn't a 'fair situation' and 'seemed to acknowledge there was an awkwardness about the salary'. BBC brief Rachel Crasnow called foot-fault, because this conversation hadn't been flagged in her witness statement.

There'll be further angst over the disclosure in evidence bundles of the names of 121 women who were party to an NUJ bid to bring a collective "grievance" against the BBC in December 2017. The union argued they'd all been paid less than men doing the same or similar jobs; the BBC refused to take the case as a group. Many of the names on the list are familiar, but clearly they should have been redacted in the papers submitted; whose fault was that ?

One name successfully redacted by the BBC side in their court papers is that of the senior manager who told Samira “the BBC doesn’t do equal pay” in their initial response to her grievance. A major guessing game is underway.

Samira has told Twitter followers that the hearing is set to run until next Tuesday.