When BBC director-general Tim Davie sits before a powerful Commons select committee on Tuesday, he will face fierce questions about why the Corporation failed to properly investigate yet another shameful episode involving journalist Martin Bashir.
The BBC is still reeling from a devastating report by Lord Dyson, which condemned the 'deceitful way' Bashir obtained his now infamous 1995 interview with Princess Diana and the 'woeful incompetence' of a subsequent internal investigation.
Now Mr Davie must get to grips with a second scandal and the prospect of another costly and embarrassing inquiry.
When BBC director-general Tim Davie (above) sits before a powerful Commons select committee on Tuesday, he will face fierce questions about why the Corporation failed to properly investigate yet another shameful episode involving journalist Martin Bashir
The BBC is still reeling from a devastating report by Lord Dyson, which condemned the 'deceitful way' Bashir (above) obtained his now infamous 1995 interview with Princess Diana and the 'woeful incompetence' of a subsequent internal investigation
This time it centres on how Martin Bashir borrowed and then lost the clothes of a murdered schoolgirl, and the BBC's derisory efforts to track them down when police said they wanted them as part of a review of evidence in their murder inquiry.
Julian Knight MP, chairman of the Commons culture select committee, last night described revelations in today's Mail on Sunday as a 'dark day indeed' for the Corporation.
'When Mr Davie appears before my committee on Tuesday in Parliament, I will expect him to have answers to the questions that The MoS is putting to him,' he said.
Karen Hadaway and her friend Nicola Fellows, both nine, became known as the 'Babes In The Wood' after their bodies were found in woodland near their Brighton homes in October 1986. They had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
Petty criminal Russell Bishop, then 21, was tried the following year for their murders but acquitted amid a litany of mistakes by police, forensics experts and prosecutors.
Now Mr Davie must get to grips with a second scandal. This time it centres on how Martin Bashir borrowed and then lost the clothes of a murdered schoolgirl, and the BBC's derisory efforts to track them down when police said they wanted them as part of a review of evidence in their murder inquiry. Karen Hadaway (left) and her friend Nicola Fellows (right), both nine, became known as the 'Babes In The Wood' after their bodies were found in woodland near their Brighton homes in October 1986. They had been sexually assaulted and strangled
Three years later, he was jailed for life after kidnapping and sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl. Karen and Nicola's families, however, were devastated that the man widely suspected of killing their daughters had apparently escaped justice.
In 1990, Eileen Fairweather, an award-winning investigative journalist and co-author of this MoS investigation, began looking into why the Babes In The Wood prosecution had failed so spectacularly.
In March 1991, she met Martin Bashir, then a 28-year-old BBC reporter, and the pair began working on a joint investigation for BBC2's Public Eye documentary series.
A document unearthed by the MoS shows that in July 1991, Nigel Chapman, Public Eye's editor, wrote to Ms Fairweather to outline 'the lines of enquiry I wish to see pursued in the Brighton story.'
Crucially, his letter was copied to Martin Bashir, the BBC's staff reporter, and Charlie Beckett, an assistant producer.
Listing ten points he was 'particularly interested in', Mr Chapman highlighted the 'confusions over the collection of forensic evidence' and asked 'how far were the girls' clothes analysed?'
He then instructed the reporters to obtain evidence related to the case and hand it to Dr Russell Stockdale, a former Home Office expert who worked for Forensic Access, one of Britain's first independent forensic consultancies.
Russell Bishop (above), then 21, was tried in 1987 for Karen and Nicola's murders but acquitted amid a litany of mistakes by police, forensics experts and prosecutors. Three years later, he was jailed for life after kidnapping and sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl. Karen and Nicola's families, however, were devastated that the man widely suspected of killing their daughters had apparently escaped justice
'We need to get hold of scene of crime material, post-mortem details and give them to Dr Stockdale,' he wrote.
Just over a month later, Ms Fairweather and Bashir interviewed Karen's mother Michelle at her home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.Bashir made an extraordinary offer: the BBC would be prepared to pay for new forensic testing on her daughter's clothes, which had been returned to the family by police, in the hope of finding fresh clues about the killer.
Ms Hadaway agreed, handing over a bag containing Karen's school sweatshirt, T-shirt, knickers and vest. Bashir even left her a signed receipt. That was the last Ms Fairweather saw of Bashir and her involvement in the investigation ended soon after.
No programme was ever broadcast and the clothes were never returned. She repeatedly called Public Eye to ask about the programme's progress but was stonewalled.
Ms Hadaway this weekend said she was invited to a meeting at the BBC's White City offices to discuss Public Eye's proposed programme. Indeed, the Corporation even sent a car to collect her from her home.
'I went up to the BBC in London.
