BBC battles to contain MasterChef UK scandal as regulator flags Gaza doco probe

London: Britain’s media regulator said on Monday it will investigate a BBC documentary about children’s lives in Gaza, after a review concluded that the narrator’s father has Hamas links and the program therefore breached editorial guidelines on accuracy.

The announcement marked a dark day for the broadcaster, as it came at the same time as a report into allegations against MasterChef UK host Gregg Wallace found that dozens of misconduct allegations made against him were upheld.

As a report into allegations against MasterChef UK host Gregg Wallace landed, Ofcom announced a probe into a Gaza documentary shown by the broadcaster.Credit: Peter Dazeley

The law firm-led report said 45 out of the 83 allegations made against Wallace during his time on the show between 2005 and 2018 were substantiated. Most related to “inappropriate sexual language and humour”, with a smaller number of allegations about Wallace “being in a state of undress” and one incident of unwelcome physical contact.

The broadcaster removed the program, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, from its streaming service in February after it emerged that the 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.

Ofcom, the media regulator, said that it was launching an investigation under rules that state factual programs must not materially mislead the audience.

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That came after a review by the broadcaster found that the independent production company that made the program didn’t share the background information regarding the narrator’s father with the BBC. It said that the production company, Hoyo Films, bears most responsibility for the failure, though it didn’t “intentionally” mislead the BBC.

The review, conducted by the corporation’s director of editorial complaints, found no other breaches of editorial guidelines, including impartiality.

There was no evidence of “outside interests” impacting on the program, it said.

Doco fallout

Earlier this year, UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy questioned why no one at the BBC had lost their job over the program’s airing.

The broadcaster’s director-general, Tim Davie, had told lawmakers that the BBC received hundreds of complaints alleging that the documentary was biased against Israel – as well as hundreds more criticising the program’s removal from its streaming service.

Directors Ken Loach and Mike Leigh and actor Riz Ahmed were among 500 media figures who signed a letter published by Artists for Palestine UK saying a “political” campaign to discredit the program risked dehumanising Palestinian voices in the media.

BBC director-general Tim Davie is fighting criticism of the broadcaster on several fronts. Credit: AP

Davie said that the report identified “a significant failing” in relation to accuracy in the documentary. Hoyo Films apologised for the mistake. Both firms said they would prevent similar errors in the future.

Separately, more than 100 BBC journalists wrote a letter to Davie earlier this month criticising the broadcaster’s decision not to air another documentary, Gaza: Medics Under Fire. They expressed concerns it wasn’t reporting “‘without fear or favour’ when it comes to Israel”.

The decision suggested that the BBC was an “organisation that is crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government”, that letter said.

The BBC has been under intense scrutiny for its coverage touching on the war in Gaza. Last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and others condemned the broadcaster for livestreaming a performance by rap punk duo Bob Vylan, who led crowds at Glastonbury Festival in chanting “death” to the Israeli military.

The Israel-Hamas war started after the militant group led an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1200 people and taking 251 hostage. Most of the hostages have been released in earlier ceasefires. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry, under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The UN and other international organisations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.

MasterChef report lands

The BBC said on Monday it will no longer work with MasterChef host Gregg Wallace after a report found that dozens of misconduct allegations made against the hit cooking show presenter were upheld.

The report, led by a law firm, said 45 out of the 83 allegations made against Wallace during his time on the show between 2005 and 2018 were substantiated. It said the majority of the claims related to “inappropriate sexual language and humour”, with a smaller number of allegations about Wallace “being in a state of undress” and one incident of unwelcome physical contact.

Wallace, 60, stepped away from hosting the hit BBC reality show, which is made by an independent production company, last year while an investigation was launched into allegations by multiple women that he made inappropriate sexual comments and behaved inappropriately over almost two decades.

Gregg Wallace (right) with MasterChef UK co-host John Torode.

The BBC has come under pressure over how it handles sexual misconduct allegations and how Wallace had continued to front some of its most popular shows for so long despite the complaints.

The broadcaster issued a statement of apology, adding Wallace’s “return to MasterChef is untenable”.

“The BBC has informed Mr Wallace we have no plans to work with him in future,” it said. “Although the full extent of these issues were not known at the relevant time, opportunities were missed to address this behaviour, both by the production companies running MasterChef and the BBC.”

The broadcaster previously said that Wallace was warned by his employers after a complaint in 2018, and an internal investigation at the time found his behaviour was “unacceptable and unprofessional”.

The latest investigation found that there was little or no formal training or clear escalation procedures in place for staff – many of those working on the show were freelancers – leading to underreporting and normalisation of inappropriate behaviour.

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Wallace has strongly denied the claims, and previously stated that he will not be “cancelled for convenience”.

He said in a statement Monday that he was “deeply sorry for any distress” his behaviour caused, though he maintained that none of the most serious allegations against him were upheld.

“Some of my humour and language missed the mark. I never set out to harm or humiliate,” he said.

In December, he drew an angry backlash after he alleged that complaints about his behaviour came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.

MasterChef is one of the BBC’s most popular and long-running competition shows, spawning numerous spin-offs and adaptations in other countries, including MasterChef Australia.

Caroline Dinenage, who chairs parliament’s culture, media and sport committee, said there was still a long way to go to tackle inappropriate behaviour in the creative industry when complainants still find it easier to take their allegations to the press rather than use internal processes.

Downing Street said it welcomed the BBC severing its ties with Wallace.

“We’re clear that appropriate steps must be taken to ensure abuses of power are prevented from happening in the future,” a spokesman said.

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