Statement regarding BBC apology to Benjamin Cohen and Anthony James
(Image: PinkNews)
On 10 December 2024, the BBC broadcast and published a documentary and accompanying news coverage making extremely serious and false allegations about us. The BBC ignored warnings about the veracity of these allegations and chose to broadcast false claims to millions of people.
Today, nearly two years later, the BBC has retracted those allegations in full and apologised unreservedly for making them.
When this began, we were new dads and our son was just six months old. What should have been one of the happiest periods of our lives was instead thrown into chaos, impacting our business, our colleagues and our family. This included being subjected to additional investigations by social workers ahead of the Family Court hearing concerning the parental order for our son.
By falsely portraying us as engaging in sexual misconduct and pressuring female employees over surrogacy, the BBC reinforced one of the most damaging homophobic tropes: that gay men are sexual predators who pose a threat to others.
These were allegations that should never have been broadcast.
It took minutes for these false allegations to spread around the world, but nearly two years for the BBC to publicly acknowledge that they were false. The BBC now owes licence fee payers an explanation of how such a serious failure could have occurred and what it intends to do to demonstrate that it remains fit for purpose.
We are incredibly grateful to Mark Lewis and Megan Tolkien of Patron Law, Lorna Skinner KC and Kirsten Sjovoll of Matrix Chambers, whose support and determination helped us reach this point.
We brought this case because we wanted the truth to be established and these allegations to be retracted. We are donating the BBC’s compensation to the Multiple Sclerosis Society and to the charity of the NHS Trust that Anthony felt compelled to resign from following the broadcast.
Throughout all of this, our greatest fear has been for our son’s future.
We have worried about the day he goes to school and other children find these false allegations online. We have worried about what he might read about his dads, what his friends might say and what that could do to him.
Today’s apology cannot erase what happened, but it means that when that day eventually comes, the truth will be there.
Our amazing son has also been the person who unknowingly carried us through this nightmare. The joy, love and brightness he brought into our lives cut through some very dark moments. However difficult things became, we still had the privilege of getting up every morning and simply being his dads.
In ways he cannot possibly understand yet, that kept us going.
Nothing can give us back the time we have lost, nor undo the impact this has had on our family. But the record has now been set straight.
The allegations were false. The BBC has retracted them in full and apologised unreservedly.
Today, we can finally begin to move forward.
The BBC, though, needs to carefully consider and learn from the impact that its reckless journalism has had on a young family’s lives.
