Tory peer Lord McAlpine has spoken of his anger after a BBC Newsnight report led to him being wrongly implicated in child abuse allegations.
The former Conservative party treasurer told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One he should have been contacted beforehand.
He said about being wrongly under suspicion: “You just think there’s something wrong with the world.”
Some of those involved in deciding to run the report on care homes in north Wales face disciplinary measures.
Although Lord McAlpine was not named by Newsnight, the report led to a flood of accusations about him on the internet.
‘Extremely bad’
Speaking to the World at One, he said: “Of course they [the BBC] should have called me and I would have told them exactly what they learnt later on.”
He continued: “That it was complete rubbish and that I’d only ever been to Wrexham once in my life. They could have saved themselves a lot of agonising and money, actually, if they’d just made that telephone call.”
The peer was asked about London Mayor Boris Johnson’s comment that to call someone a paedophile was to “consign them to the lowest circle of hell – and while they’re still alive”.
He replied: “Absolutely. I think it describes pretty much what happened to me in the first few days of this event.
“It gets into your bones. It gets into, it makes you angry. And that’s extremely bad for you to be angry. And it gets into your soul and you just think there’s something wrong with the world.”
Lord McAlpine’s solicitor Andrew Reid said he was hopeful an agreement would be reached with the BBC on Thursday – but that his client was aware that any payment would ultimately come from licence fee payers.
The BBC has not yet been able to confirm this.
Mr Reid also appealed to all those who had named Lord McAlpine on the social media site Twitter to come forward. He said some prominent people had already apologised, but others had not.
He told the World at One: “What we’re basically saying to people is, look, we know – in inverted commas – who you are, we know exactly the extent of what you’ve done. And it’s easier to come forward and see us and apologise and arrange to settle with us because, in the long run, this is the cheapest and best way to bring this matter to an end.”
Acting director general Tim Davie took charge of the BBC following the resignation of George Entwistle in the wake of the Newsnight broadcast.
Mr Davie has vowed to “get a grip of the situation”.
An inquiry into the Newsnight broadcast – conducted by Ken MacQuarrie, director of BBC Scotland – has identified “unacceptable” failings and said basic journalistic checks were not completed.
A summary of the findings has been released by the corporation, which said the full report would be issued after the completion of disciplinary proceedings.
It added that “there was a different understanding by the key parties about where the responsibility lay for the final editorial sign off for the story on the day”.
The head of BBC Northern Ireland, Peter Johnston, said he had a role in the decision-making of the Newsnight report but was not considering his position.
A BBC spokesman confirmed Mr Johnston’s involvement “in decisions about the BBC Newsnight report”.
Three Conservative MPs called for funding to be withdrawn from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) which was involved in the Newsnight investigation into the historical north Wales child abuse allegations.
Chain of command
Mr Entwistle resigned after eight weeks as BBC director general, following the Newsnight report.
The BBC’s director of news, Helen Boaden, and her deputy, Steve Mitchell, have been asked to “step aside” pending an internal review into the way abuse claims about Jimmy Savile were handled.
The corporation said it found that neither Ms Boaden nor her deputy Mr Mitchell “had anything at all to do with the failed Newsnight investigation into Lord McAlpine”.
But they were in the chain of command at the time Newsnight dropped an earlier investigation into abuse claims against former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile.
The BBC said once the review is completed by former Sky News head Nick Pollard, Ms Boaden and Mr Mitchell “expect to then return to their positions”.
