BBC Panorama chief faced police questions - using forged documents to target one of Britain’s richest doctors.

BBC Panorama chief will face police questions

Dipesh Gadher, Media Correspondent From The Sunday Times

A SENIOR executive at Panorama is to be questioned by police over allegations that the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme broke the law by using forged documents to target one of Britain’s richest doctors.

Detectives are expected to interview Frank Simmonds, the programme’s deputy editor, under caution, following claims that Panorama used fake referral letters from GPs to send undercover reporters into clinics run by Mohamed Taranissi, a leading IVF expert.

Officers from Scotland Yard want to question Simmonds in relation to the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act, according to an informed source. Using a “false instrument” under the Act carries a maximum jail sentence of 10 years.

The BBC is already facing a crisis of trust after it admitted deceiving viewers by faking the results of phone-in competitions in shows such as Comic Relief and Children in Need. The broadcaster has also been forced to apologise to the Queen after wrongly claiming that she stormed out of a royal photoshoot.

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The police inquiry into Panorama, however, raises fresh questions about the BBC’s core journalism, and comes as Mark Byford, the deputy director-general, faces a grilling by MPs on Tuesday.

Taranissi, 52, whose wealth is estimated at £38m, is suing Panorama for libel, claiming the programme made defamatory allegations about his techniques and has caused lasting damage to his professional reputation. The BBC could face a bill for more than £1m in compensation and legal costs if it loses the case.

The Panorama investigation into Taranissi, broadcast in January, claimed that one of his central London clinics, the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre (ARGC), offered “unnecessary and unproven” treatment to an undercover reporter posing as a patient.

The show alleged that a 26-year-old journalist was offered IVF treatment costing thousands of pounds despite neither her nor her partner, having any history of fertility problems.

It also claimed that Taranissi was running a second clinic without a licence and was sending his older and harder-to-treat patients there to maintain a high success rate at the ARGC.

Taranissi, an Egyptian who has helped mothers give birth to 2,300 babies in seven years, denies any wrongdoing. His lawyers claim that Panorama researchers forged at least four referral letters from nonexistent GPs to gain access to his clinics.

Police took a statement from Taranissi earlier this year and now want to question Simmonds, who oversaw the IVF sting, about the letters. The BBC claims they were “justified” in the context of the undercover probe.

A BBC spokesman said: “We are more than happy to cooperate with the police. They indicated at the outset that they would want to speak to Mr Simmonds.” A spokesman for the Yard said: “ Inquiries are still ongoing.”