Trust slams Reef's BBC Daytime breaches

The BBC Trust has found "serious and repeated" editorial breaches in a range of factual programmes produced by Reef Television for BBC Daytime.

In the three offending programmes, production staff pretended to be members of the public while purchasing items and actual events were re-staged without the original participants.

The Trust also found that items purchased off-screen by the production team often affected on-screen challenges in the shows. However, none of the breaches were linked to viewer competitions.

The offending programmes included: series one to five of Sun, Sea And Bargain Spotting on BBC One and BBC Two, series one and two of Trash To Cash on BBC One and series two of Dealers: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is on BBC One.

After the transgressions were highlighted by the press in August, the BBC immediately suspended Reef Television pending a full investigation. The production company subsequently admitted to the breaches, but argued that it wrongly believed they were acceptable.

"The practices identified in Reef Television's programming routinely misled the BBC's audiences and are totally unacceptable. The Trust takes these breaches extremely seriously: we know they directly undermine the public's trust in the BBC," said the Trust's editorial standards committee chair Richard Tait.

"Although they occurred in programming made by a third-party, it is ultimately the BBC's responsibility as the broadcaster to make sure that the Editorial Guidelines are adhered to, regardless of a programme's provenance.

"We're satisfied that the outcomes agreed with the Executive reflect the severity of these cases. The BBC must not allow its audiences to be misled. It must put steps in place to prevent this and, if misleading material is uncovered, it must be dealt with openly and firmly."

The Trust acknowledged that Reef Television has been suspended without pay since August, and that all offending programmes have ceased broadcasting or being repeated on any BBC channels.

Appropriate compensation to be paid by Reef will now be set by the BBC Executive, along with any new compliance measures to be introduced before the firm can recommence production for the corporation.