the bbc told millions that two gay men pressured their staff to be surrogates. today it apologized unreservedly in the high court. took them two years.

via the agreed statement read in the High Court, Deadline and PinkNews

"The BBC retracts and apologises unreservedly for the defamatory allegations made in the programme and the article."

That is the BBC's own counsel, in the High Court in London on Thursday, in a joint statement both sides agreed in advance. It ends a libel case brought by Benjamin Cohen and Anthony James, the married couple who founded and run PinkNews, over a documentary the BBC first put on iPlayer on Dec. 10, 2024.

what the bbc said, and took back

The programme was called "PinkNews: Behind Closed Doors." According to the statement, it made "a series of very serious, false, and defamatory allegations" about both men, including that they enabled and tolerated sexual misconduct by themselves and toward junior staff. A BBC News article published the same day repeated those claims and added a new one: that the couple had placed inappropriate pressure on young female employees to act as surrogates for them. At the time the BBC said it had spoken to 30 current and former staff, Deadline reports. On Thursday the corporation said, through counsel, that it accepts "everything" the couple's side told the court.

The BBC is paying compensation. Nobody has said how much, and the couple say it is going to the MS Society and Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Charity. Deadline also reports that the original article came off the BBC website on Thursday morning. The BBC's only public line, given to both outlets: it "has reached a settlement" and "will not be issuing any further comment." Two years of reporting, two sentences of comment.

the part that went to family court

Here is the detail that should make anyone queer put their coffee down. Cohen and James have an infant son, born through surrogacy. The agreed statement says the BBC's coverage triggered additional investigations by CAFCASS, the agency that advises England's family courts, before the hearing that would make them his legal parents. Cohen stepped down as a trustee of the disability charity Humanity and Inclusion. James, a former GP, left the board of an NHS hospital trust.

In a statement the couple said the BBC "reinforced one of the most damaging homophobic tropes: that gay men are sexual predators who pose a threat to others." And: "It took minutes for these false allegations to spread around the world, but nearly two years for the BBC to publicly acknowledge that they were false."

A note on our sourcing, since we link to PinkNews most weeks: it is the claimants' own company, so everything above about what the BBC alleged and conceded comes from the court document and from Deadline, and PinkNews is cited only for the couple's words and the date of the hearing.