Stuart Andrew, the shadow culture minister, said the BBC should order an “full independent” inquiry into the making of the documentary, and that police should become involved if any payments had been made to “Hamas or their affiliates”.
In statements issued on Thursday evening after the BBC board met to discuss the issue, the corporation said Hoyo Films, the independent production company that made the documentary, had paid the boy’s mother “a limited sum of money for the narration”.
Roger Mosey, who was head of BBC television news until 2013, said mistakes by the corporation were “not an unfortunate accident” but the upshot of “some people not doing their job properly and making sure this programme was fit to be broadcast”.
The BBC made “basic rookie errors” over a documentary about life in Gaza that featured the son of a Hamas minister, a former senior executive at the corporation has said.
In a separate statement, the BBC’s board said mistakes made in producing the documentary were “significant and damaging to the BBC”.
