ITV in new row over Alzheimer's documentary

Filmmaker Paul Watson today accused ITV of making him a "scapegoat" in the row over his documentary Malcolm & Barbara: Love's Farewell.

The programme - due to air next week - follows Malcolm Pointon and wife Barbara over an eleven-year period as Malcolm battles Alzheimer's disease.

Press information publicising the show had described how the documentary apparently ends: "The film ends when Barbara calls Paul to ask him to come, as Malcolm is about to die. In moving scenes, Malcolm is surrounded by his family and Barbara strokes his head as he passes away."

Yesterday ITV confirmed that Pointon's moment of death had not been filmed and the scenes were actually of Pointon slipping into a coma before his death three days later.

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme this morning, Watson said he had "not set out to deceive" and claimed that ITV had previously refused a plea to make a public clarification.

"I offered ITV a way of resolving the issue straight and clean and they turned it down," he said. "I asked them to put in five words to explain the picture is not one of Malcolm's death. He did not regain consciousness and dies some time later.

"They turned it down at that instance and came back to me much later and said 'maybe it is a good idea. We lost time.'"

He went on to accuse ITV of making him "the scapegoat" in the ongoing row over viewer deception, adding that his lengthy documentary had now been "wrecked" by the film's final minute. "A trust that I have had for eleven years to film two very, very nice people enduring one of fate's worst illnesses - that will get wrecked."

In a statement issued this morning, ITV said it had begun a formal inquiry "to establish the sequence of events and the facts".

The broadcaster added: "It is correct that Paul Watson approached ITV on Monday to suggest a clarification in the film about the moment of death. When ITV did establish, later that day, that the death was indeed some days after the end of the film, we immediately agreed with Paul that a clarification needed to be made. ITV issued a statement the following morning."