2010 High Court: calls for a judicial review over quiz show scandal

[El Gringo]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/art...=feeds-newsxml
Whistleblower calls for a judicial review over quiz show scandal
21st August 2010

A High Court hearing is due next month that could lead to a judicial review of the authorities' handling of the TV quiz show scandal, which saw broadcasters fined millions of pounds.
Bob Winsor, a former TV quiz show worker turned whistleblower, will present his application on September 7 for a judicial review of the Parliamentary Ombudsman's decision not to investigate alleged flaws in media regulator Ofcom's handling of the quiz show scandal.
All the major terrestrial television companies including ITV, the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel Five were fined millions of pounds for cheating viewers by using premium-rate phone lines for quizzes viewers could not win.

Contrary: Ann Abrahams of Legal Services Ombudsman has previously refused to review the decision not to look at Ofcom's handling of the affair

Programmes included Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway as well as phone-in competitions held over many years on GMTV.
Broadcasters ignored viewers' votes or closed phone lines before all calls were counted while taking money from every caller.

ITV was fined a record £5.68 million two years ago and gave £8 million to charity in recompense for being unable to reimburse all the viewers it cheated.
Winsor claims that Ofcom's investigation into the affair was flawed and failed to gather evidence that would have led to viewers being fully refunded. He has been backed by his local Conservative MP, Mark Field.
However, the Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham has previously refused to review the decision not to look at Ofcom's handling of the affair.
The High Court asked Winsor to resubmit his case this year and for the Ombudsman to reconsider her decision.
Winsor's lawyer has advised him that there are legal grounds for challenging the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate Ofcom, contrary to the Ombudsman's own claim.
He has also advised that the High Court has the right to order the Ombudsman to carry out an investigation, which the Ombudsman has also denied.
Winsor also claims that the Ombudsman's decision-making on investigating claims has been inconsistent. The Ombudsman continues to maintain that there are no grounds for a judicial review.

http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/s...2&postcount=14

http://www.parliament.the-stationery...53/8051304.htm

Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence
MR ED RICHARDS AND MR STEWART PURVIS
13 MAY 2008

Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence
MR ED RICHARDS AND MR STEWART PURVIS
13 MAY 2008

Q536 Chairman: Before you go, can I just raise one other matter with you? Since you came to talk to us at the session we had on your Annual Report you have announced a fine on ITV for abuses of PRS. Do you see that as the end of the matter or do you think, particularly given that nobody appears to have lost their job let alone be required to face a consequence, there may be a further role for investigation by the police?

Mr Richards: It certainly is not the end of the matter in the sense that we have further outstanding cases. I think ITV themselves took the decision to put into the public domain one particular case which was the British Comedy Awards; that is in our process at the moment and will be out in the coming weeks. I think there is without doubt a general question about that period which relates to the issue of corporate compliance. It is easy, I think, to identify or think about this programme by programme and that is in a sense what has happened, but my own view is that there is a broader question about the standards of overall corporate compliance in what was clearly a systemic and widespread problem. Whether that should involve the police or not is a matter for the police. In a previous case the Serious Fraud Office did contact us, did ask us for the files and information which we immediately gave them (this was the GMTV case) and to our knowledge they have not taken that particular case further. The question of whether it is a matter for the police is really a matter for them. They know what we have done; they know the issues; it is fully in the public domain. No-one could possibly have missed it so I think that is a question properly addressed to them. My own view is that there is an important outstanding question about the overall level of corporate compliance because it clearly was and I think has been recognised as a widespread systemic problem, not a single issue.

Q537 Chairman: Have you transferred the files relating to your investigation of ITV to the Serious Fraud Office?

Mr Purvis: They have not asked for them but all the adjudications are already in the public domain on our website. We are aware that they are aware of them and should they wish to ask for more details we are only too happy to provide them.

Q538 Chairman: You do not feel you should draw their attention to some of your findings?

Mr Richards: I think they are well aware of what has happened. They were in contact with us during the previous case and they are very well aware of the situation.

Q539 Mr Evans: How do you know they are aware? Have they spoken to you about it?

Mr Richards: They have not spoken to us about this particular case; they have spoken to us about previous cases.

Q540 Mr Evans: How do you know they are aware of this case?

Mr Richards: It is difficult to see how anyone could not be aware of these cases. They have an established interest in the topic because they came to us. They cannot be unaware of the situation; it is plastered over every front page.

Q541 Mr Evans: Are you surprised they have not got in contact with you?

Mr Richards: Last time they did not get in contact with us over night, it took a little while.

Mr Purvis: Sometimes we do get an individual phone call from an individual police station as well because they have read something and they want to follow it up. If we were hiding away our findings I think you might ask why we have not handed them over, but we have not exactly hidden our findings. If I could just pick up on the other point in a non-police sense which is: does the regulatory system work? I think this issue of a system based on individual licences for channels which is where we are, life has moved on now and these channels are sometimes consolidated, there are media organisations which have a number of channels and the sanction system is based per channel but, as Ed said, actually sometimes responsibility lies at the corporate centre. We have other cases in which this is an issue. I suspect one of the lessons learned will be crudely: where does the buck stop? Should it be down to the managing director of an individual licence holder or does it lie at a corporate centre?

Mr Richards: I think this is a very important issue. If Parliament were considering new legislation in this area now one of the things we would, without doubt, say to you is that the sanction system should be linked to where the real responsibility lies rather than attached to single individual licences which has been an anomaly and a constraint in relation to our meeting the seriousness of the concern in this area. No-one spotted it; it is a product of the history of ITV being a regional system. In reality these are network programmes that are running across the whole of ITV, but actually the sanction only relates to an individual licence.

Mr Purvis: The issue applies not just to ITV but to other major media organisations.

Q542 Adam Price: When this first came to the public domain I wrote to the Metropolitan Police asking them to investigate. They wrote back to me and said in terms that it was a matter for you, as a regulator, to refer the matter to the police. You are saying it is a matter for them. Both cannot be correct.

Mr Richards: What we are not expert in is deciding whether something is a criminal offence or not. That is not what we are expert in. We are expert in deciding whether this was a breach of the broadcasting code and, if it was, setting a sanction. What the police are expert in is deciding whether something may or may not be a criminal offence. We do not want to get ourselves in the position of recommending or suggesting that something is or is not a criminal offence; it is dangerous territory for a regulator to get into. In the case of the SFO what we found in the previous case was that "who is going to tell who" as it were resolved itself perfectly happily with them making a single call to us, we gave them the files and they investigated it. That may well be what happens again on this occasion. It has found a way of resolving itself.

Adam Price: Certainly there seems to be some degree of confusion on the part of some police officers and police stations.

Chairman: Thank you; we need to move onto our next session.

Panorama probes phone-in furore
http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/t...light=panorama

Channel 4 Richard and Judy sue Eckoh: who knew what????
http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/t...ighlight=eckoh
http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/s...7&postcount=61
http://www.the-scream.co.uk/forums/s...5&postcount=62

and today the lunatics and criminals within the 'industry' and Phonepayplus

Regulator allows charging for uncounted TV text votes
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08...yplus_tv_vote/

AIME TRUMPETS SUCCESS OF ITS LOBBYING EFFORTS TO BRING BACK SMS-BASED INTERACTIVE TV VOTING IN UK
http://www.itvt.com/story/7248/aime-...e-tv-voting-uk

[El Gringo]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/art...=feeds-newsxml
12th September 2010
[
]
Separately, Bob Winsor, the whistleblower who alerted the authorities to rigged TV quiz shows, has been refused permission by the High Court to apply for a judicial review of the Ombudsman’s decision not to investigate media watchdog Ofcom’s handling of the issue. Winsor is considering whether to launch an appeal.

just noticed this....not surprised

[El Gringo]

@Bob re Ofcom

here's the Ofcom minutes of evidence to the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport