No further action over Ross prank
Updated on 21 November 2008
Prank calls by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were "so dreadfully offensive" they should never have been broadcast, the BBC Trust said.
However, the body did not call for Ross to be sacked and the 48-year-old will return to his £6 million-a-year job when his current period of suspension without pay is up in January.
No further action will be taken over obscene calls to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs broadcast on Russell Brand's Radio 2 show last month.
The Trust said the material broadcast was a "deplorable intrusion" into the private lives of Sachs and his granddaughter, Georgina Baillie.
There was no "editorial justification" and no "informed consent obtained" for airing the messages, the Trust said.
BBC trustee Richard Tait said there were three failures - to exercise editorial control, to follow established compliance systems and a failure of judgment in taking editorial decisions.
Chairman Sir Michael Lyons said: "We have underlined very clearly that it is not the job of the Trust to make decisions about the terms and conditions of performers or the sanctions that are applied to them when they are found to be wanting.
"We are very clear that the director general has taken the right action with respect to Jonathan Ross."
The incident resulted in Brand resigning along with Radio 2 boss Lesley Douglas and David Barber, the station's head of specialist music and compliance.
BBC director-general Mark Thompson described the incident as a "gross lapse of taste".
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