Watchdog rejects new complaint

Television watchdogs have rejected a complaint by newsreader Nicholas Owen that Chris Morris conned him into appearing on the Brass Eye special.

Owen claimed he was duped into promoting phoney anti-paedophile charities on the notorious Channel 4 show.

But the Broadcasting Standards Commission rejected his complaint that the show was unfair to him.

It ruled: "The main target of the programme was the reaction to, and media presentation of, paedophilia and the public attitudes thereby encouraged. It considers that the programme served a public interest purpose and did not trivialise the issues raised."

The panel did conceded that Owen was not jumping on a bandwagon and that he "genuinely believed he had something to offer ".

But, it said, "he agreed to make a number of statements that, by his own acknowledgement, he did not understand, without making any checks about the organisation or probing in any depth on some of the bizarre statements he was being asked to make".

Owen was seen on the programme backing such bizarrely-named campaigns as Promoting Computer Progress and Curbing Professional Cyber Portal Crime and Phnephnetic Coercion and Pseudoveillance Co-operates.

In January the BSC threw out a similar complaint by Labour MP Barbara Follett, saying that she effectively only had herself to blame if she appeared foolish for speaking on matters she did not understand.

Published: 5 Mar 2002