After a weekend of frontpage stories in The Sun newspaper, which accused a BBC presenter of exchanging payment for pornographic images from an adult, a lawyer representing the person in question has come forward to denounce the stories in The Sun as “rubbish” and has added that nothing inappropriate happened.

Hacked Off CEO Nathan Sparkes said,“If the claims of this young person’s lawyer are true, they indicate that the Sun failed to follow even the most basic journalistic standards in pursuit of this story.“They have used this young person, and BBC presenter, to further their relentless anti-BBC agenda.“Newspapers like The Sun are able to publish these wild attacks, which do irreparable damage to people’s lives, with impunity because they remain outside of any independent form of regulation. There remains no evidence that IPSO, the Sun’s complaints handler which is controlled by the industry, has lifted a finger to investigate The Sun in relation to their conduct.“If the lawyer’s claims are true, then The Sun should issue a direct apology to the BBC for its coverage over the last few days.”

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