A BBC Scotland investigation into the Glasgow bin lorry crash has had three Crown Office complaints against it upheld.
The BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body, upheld complaints about the programme Lies, Laws and the Bin Lorry Tragedy, broadcast in 2015, which examined the decision not to prosecute driver Harry Clarke over the December 2014 crash which claimed six lives.
The programme heard claims from relatives that Crown official David Green referred to the bin lorry driver as “fat and uneducated”. It was claimed the official told them just weeks after the decision that the driver previously had a one-off faint in a hot canteen, when in fact it had happened at the wheel of a bus.
One of the upheld complants surrounded the claim that Mr Green, head of the Scottish Fatalities Investigation Unit had made offensive remarks about the driver’s appearance and education in the presence of relatives of the crash victims.
The Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee said the documentary did not make clear Mr Green’s position that a colleague had corroborated his denial.
It also upheld a complaint that the programme makers failed to state that Mr Green could not be interviewed about the allegations because as a civil servant he had no right of reply.
And they also failed to adequately explain that that the Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland felt it was inappropriate to be interviewed in the documentary while a fatal accident inquiry into the tragedy was still ongoing.
A COPFS spokeswoman said: “We raised a complaint about the BBC’s failure to accurately report our position and we note that the BBC Trust has now accepted that was the case.”
BBC Scotland said it disagreed with the BBC Trust’s decision saying it “took great care to make sure the programme was fair to the Crown Office”.
Mr Clarke, 58, was unconscious when the Glasgow City Council bin lorry veered out of control on 22 December 2014, killing six people and injuring 17 others.
A Fatal Accident Inquiry held in 2015 found that the tragedy could have been avoided if Mr Clarke had disclosed to the authorities and his employers about his long history of blackouts.
The Crown decided not to prosecute Mr Clarke after saying there was no evidence that he knew, or ought to have known, that he was unfit to drive.
The Editorial Standards Committee said it wanted to “emphasise that the public interest in the administration of justice provided the strongest possible editorial justification for making the documentary, for telling the victims’ relatives’ stories and for broadcasting their version of events, notwithstanding that those claims were disputed”.