BBC Apology to Liz Green

Liz Green presents the 2024 Yorkshire Young Achievers Arts Award to Rocco Haynes

We are proud to have worked on behalf of Yorkshire Young Achievers Awards winner and friend and client of the practice, Liz Green, to achieve a successful conclusion to her long struggle to elicit an apology from the BBC

Liz was targeted by former BBC Radio Leeds presenter Alex Bellfield over a period of years. Belfield was jailed for five years and 26 weeks in 2022 for his campaign of stalking, including of the presenter Jeremy Vine.

Liz, who also worked at the BBC, and three other women had also been victims of his relentless harassment.

Liz was represented by our Head of Employment Law, Partner Iain Jenkins, who said: “At the trial, the Judge commented that Belfield had targeted Liz and other female employees of the BBC ‘in a historic course of conduct…. which amounted to statutory harassment, causing distress and alarm’. It was ‘a campaign of harassment by email and social media’.

“Whilst the BBC eventually appreciated the seriousness of the situation and the police became involved, it was clear that for some time it failed to take adequate steps to protect them. Having suffered trauma at the hands of Alex Belfield, Liz left the BBC and she and her three colleagues took the BBC to task over its lack of action, its failure to protect them as it should led to years of suffering.

“We issued an employment tribunal claim on behalf of Liz.  Along with another lawyer we negotiated a settlement with the BBC and their lawyers which included a full and unreserved apology and a financial settlement. The BBC had clearly let down Liz and her colleagues. They have all suffered greatly as a result.“

Iain Jenkins

The BBC said: “People who work for the BBC are often in the public eye and under scrutiny however, it is unacceptable for anyone to be the target of sustained abuse in the way that Rozina Breen, Elizabeth Green, Stephanie Hirst and Helen Thomas were over a number of years. The BBC cares deeply about the welfare of its staff and we recognise that before 2019 we simply didn’t do enough for these members of staff in understanding the full impact that Alex Belfield’s unacceptable behaviour had on them. For that we are deeply sorry and offer a full and unreserved apology.”

Liz was the first ever winner of the Yorkshire Young Achievers Awards Personality of the Year title in 1994 and has been a staunch supporter ever since, often presenting prizes and helping in other ways.