BBC scandal: The Sun declines Radio 4 interview to discuss its reporting

The Sun has declined the chance to discuss its reporting of the BBC presenter scandal following more claims made about him overnight.

On Wednesday, The Sun reported that a 23-year-old person has claimed the same BBC presenter broke lockdown rules to meet them during the pandemic in February 2021.

The newspaper also claimed a separate young person was contacted “out of the blue” by the presenter on Instagram in 2018.

They appear to be separate to the teenager who The Sun reported last Fridat was paid around £35,000 by the presenter for sexual images, who has been suspended by the BBC.

The young person at the centre of the original story has claimed that he objected to The Sun about the story before it was published.

During a segment on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday morning, presenter Mishal Husain revealed that The Sun had declined a request to appear on the show to discuss the newspaper’s reporting on the scandal.

It comes after The Sun published a front page calling the BBC “liars” after the corporation said they had suspended the presenter for “new allegations” – despite the stepfather of the alleged victim saying the claims had already been reported to them.

But the young person claimed they sent a message to The Sun objecting to the story that was not included in their initial reporting.

Watch: Jeremy Vine calls on BBC presenter to identify himself

Speaking on Radio 4 this morning, Nathan Sparks, the chief executive of press accountability campaign group Hacked Off, said it was “deeply irresponsible” for The Sun to publish the story without mentioning the young person’s objections.

He told Yahoo News UK: "It was deeply irresponsible for The Sun to publish their story on Friday night without referring to the objections and denials of the young person presented as the victim.

"Their failure to disclose the lack of support for the allegations from the person at the centre of the story raises serious questions about the evidential basis of the piece and their decision to publish."

Read more: Richard Bacon hits out at Jeremy Vine over BBC presenter scandal

Sparks previously told the BBC: “What appears to have been the case is The Sun published the story on the basis of allegations from a young person’s parents – who were estranged from them.

“This person is an adult – all of this relates to behaviour that the police told the family was not unlawful.”

Sparks said The Sun “disregarded” the young person’s view and “went ahead and published anyway”. He added: "The Sun has a very strong journalistic responsibility to get to the bottom of a story and stand it up.

Hacked Off has previously accused The Sun’s story of being “driven by an anti-BBC agenda, rather than the public interest”.

The Sun has said that their story was about “two very concerned parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and the welfare of their child”.

When asked about their reporting of the story and if why the young person’s objections were not reported in their original story, a spokesperson for The Sun told Yahoo News UK that they had “no further comment to make”.

A spokesperson for the Met Police said it continues to make an “assessment to establish whether there is evidence of a criminal offence being committed” and “there remains no police investigation at this time”.

Yahoo News UK has contacted the BBC for a response.