Complaint
The programme investigated the large-scale loss of savings through the sale of inappropriate financial products to small investors, maladminstration of funds and ineffective regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), focusing particularly on one company, Blackmore Bond, and some of those who had lost their savings by investing with it.Ìý A viewer complained that a scene in which the testimony of an FCA whistle-blower was recorded by an actor was misleadingly presented as if it were the occasion on which the whistle-blower’s words had been recorded for submission as evidence to a Parliamentary committee; that another sequence in which an investor discovered that the directors of Blackmore Bond were also the directors of a Gibraltar-registered company to which it had paid more than £2 million also seemed likely to be a reconstruction, though not identified as such; and that the title of the programme was inappropriate because the losses in Blackmore Bond were in the order of £46 million (rather than a billion).Ìý The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the ´óÏó´«Ã½â€™s Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, with particular reference to the section dealing with reconstructions.
Outcome
As the programme made clear that Blackmore Bond was only one example of a larger problem and also referred to other examples, the ECU thought it appropriate for its title to use a figure which reflected the scale of the problem.Ìý Having enquired into the filming of events in connection with the Gibraltar-based company, the ECU was satisfied that the sequence showed the actual moment of discovery by the investor, and was not a reconstruction.Ìý These elements of the complaint were not upheld.
Ìý
The whistle-blower’s testimony had originally been recorded, not by an actor, but by a volunteer working for the organisation the whistle-blower had contacted, some time before the filming of the sequence shown in the programme.Ìý The sequence had not been intended as a reconstruction (there having been no attempt to simulate the use of a volunteer for the original recording), but as a production device, and there had been no intention of misleading viewers.Ìý In the ECU’s judgement, however, it was close enough to a reconstruction to fall within the Guidelines’ requirement that reconstructions should be identifiable as such to viewers.Ìý It was introduced in terms which the ECU considered likely to have given viewers the impression that they were witnessing the event at which the whistle-blower’s testimony had been recorded for submission to the Parliamentary committee, and there were no verbal or visual signals which would have guarded against that impression. ÌýAlthough there was nothing misleading in the way the content of the whistle-blower’s testimony was represented, this fell short of the ´óÏó´«Ã½â€™s standards of accuracy in relation to reconstructions.
Partly upheld
Further action
The finding was reported to the Board of ´óÏó´«Ã½ News and discussed with the journalists responsible.Ìý An appropriate note has been added to the iPlayer version of the programme.