he BBC has reached a settlement with the mom of a murdered schoolgirl who mentioned Martin Bashir took her daughter’s garments and by no means returned them.
In 1991, Michelle Hadaway gave the garments to the then BBC reporter for DNA tests for BBC Two’s social affairs programme Public Eye, however the investigation didn’t air and her calls to the broadcaster have been ignored.
The garments belonged to nine-year-old schoolgirl Karen Hadaway, who was discovered sexually assaulted and strangled alongside Nicola Fellows in a woodland den in Brighton in October 1986, in what turned generally known as the Babes In The Wooden murders.
The households of the 2 women spent many years combating for justice after their killer, Russell Bishop, was initially discovered not responsible of their murders in 1987.
In 2002 and 2004, Ian Heffron, uncle of Nicola Fellows, contacted the BBC for the clothes following reform of the double jeopardy regulation, which might permit Bishop to be retried.
Nevertheless, BBC investigators have been unable to find the clothes.
Bishop, who died in January 2022 aged 55, was jailed in 2018 for at least 36 years after being convicted of the murders of Fellows and Hadaway.
In 2021, the BBC carried out a assessment of the case in a recent bid to attempt to find the clothes and an investigator spoke with Bashir.
Director-general Tim Davie later apologised to the household however mentioned “regrettably 30 years on, little extra may be carried out to search out the lacking garments”.
On Thursday, a BBC spokesperson mentioned: “We’ve at the moment reached a settlement with Michelle Hadaway in relation to the lack of the garments of her daughter, Karen.
“In 1991, Mrs Hadaway entrusted the BBC with the lacking garments on the understanding that they might be forensically examined.
“The BBC didn’t study or return the garments, and was not subsequently capable of finding them because of searches in 2004 and 2021.
“We must always have taken higher care of Karen’s garments and we didn’t.
“We settle for that we had an obligation of care to Mrs Hadaway and we fell properly in need of that and we have now beforehand apologised to her privately. We’re very sorry.”
The phrases of the settlement weren’t revealed.
The story of the misplaced clothes re-emerged following the publication of Lord Dyson’s report on the 1995 Panorama interview with the late Diana, Princess of Wales, the place reporter Bashir was discovered to have deceived the princess with a view to get hold of his unique interview together with her.