The BBC spent more than £6,500 on legal fees helping former chief financial officer Zarin Patel to correct a Daily Star article that claimed she personally helped presenters “dodge” tax.

Patel sued the Express Newspapers title for defamation after it printed an article on 24 July 2012, headlined “Dodge tax or face the sack! BBC tells its stars”.

The story claimed that BBC staff and presenters were being “forced to go off the books so Beeb chiefs could save millions”, while an editorial directly linked Patel with the edict.

Reported by Broadcast Now. You can read the full story here. 

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.