BBC Asian Network chief cleared after reporter named abuse complainant

A senior BBC executive has been cleared of breaching the law which gives victims of sex offences lifelong anonymity after a reporter named a complainant in a live radio broadcast.

BBC Asian Network head of news Arif Ansari, 44, was found not guilty of breaching the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 following a two-day trial at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court.

The trial centred around what District Judge Naomi Redhouse called an “honest mistake” in a broadcast by reporter Rickin Majithia from outside Sheffield Crown Court in February last year.

Mr Majithia told the court that he made the error because he wrongly believed the name the woman had been referred to as in court was a pseudonym.

Mr Ansari said he had no reason to doubt what his reporter had told him, especially as not naming complainants of sex offences was “as basic as it gets”.

The woman who was named in the report sat through the trial and left at the end with a man, believed to be her father, shouting: “You were lucky she wasn’t found dead, mate.”

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