Controversial BBC boss Jess Brammar was part of ‘sham’ recruitment, presenters allege
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A controversial BBC executive was part of a “sham recruitment exercise” that resulted in older women presenters losing their jobs, an employment tribunal has heard.
Martine Croxall, Kasia Madera, Annita McVeigh and Karin Giannone are suing the broadcaster, claiming that the process to hire presenters for its newly merged news channel was “rigged” against them and they were “set up to fail”.
According to documents submitted to the London Central Employment Tribunal, Jess Brammar, the BBC’s then editor of news channels, “privately assured four other chief presenters – two men and two younger women – their jobs were safe, but admitted she couldn’t say much ‘for legal reasons’”.
That is alleged to have happened in the summer of 2022, before the announcement that the BBC News and BBC World News channels would be merged, and six months before the recruitment process officially began.
The claimants, all in their 40s or 50s, applied for the new presenter roles but were unsuccessful, and subsequently spent a year off air “against our will”.
The chief presenter jobs went to two men, Matthew Amroliwala and Christian Fraser, and three women, Yalda Hakim, Maryam Moshiri and Lucy Hockings.
Whistleblower claimed Brammar gave assurances
“This was because of a sham recruitment exercise where our jobs were closed even though the redundancies were not genuine as the work still exists,” the claimants allege.
They claim that they later discovered, via a BBC whistleblower, “that candidates who ended up being successful in the process had previously been given assurances by Jess Brammar… that they would keep their jobs. We received no such assurances”.
The tribunal will shine a spotlight on the role of Ms Brammar, whose appointment in 2021 proved contentious. She joined from the Left-wing Huffington Post, and Sir Robbie Gibb, the BBC board member and former No 10 communications director under Theresa May, objected to her appointment. He argued that it would damage BBC relations with the Government.
Ms Croxall, 55, Ms Giannone, 50, Ms Madera, 48, and Ms McVeigh, 46, are suing for age discrimination, sex discrimination and harassment, claiming that the BBC created a “hostile, degrading, intimidating” workplace environment that affected their health and damaged their reputations.
They allege that the recruitment process “was rigged. This led to the five of us being kept off air for a year when we challenged the process”.
Ms Croxall said of her battle with her employer: “The BBC grinds you down. It breaks you.”
The four women have also lodged an equal pay claim, citing Mr Amroliwala’s salary. They allege that he was paid more than them for similar work.
The pay structure for news presenters has been “tainted by sex”, the women claim. Mr Amrilowala is paid £180,000-£185,000, representing a gap in pensionable pay of £36,000.
Ms Madera also claims that Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, told her that “some people had been at the news channels too long”.
Gender pay gap emerged in 2017
The BBC has faced accusations of sex discrimination since its gender pay gap was made public in 2017.
Ms Croxall said that “despite assurances publicly from the director-general that these problems would not arise again, I knew that they would”.
This is her third pay grievance against the BBC. Others were settled in 2014 and 2020.
The presenter is further claiming that she faced discrimination because she was a trade union representative. “I faced hostile attitudes towards me because of my trade union role from managers, some of whom were put in charge of recruitment exercises with which I had to engage but in which I had no prospect of success,” she alleges.
Ms Croxall was taken off air in 2022 after bosses ruled she had breached BBC impartiality rules by appearing to react “gleefully” to breaking news that Boris Johnson had pulled out of the Tory leadership race.
The hearing continues. A fifth presenter, Geeta Guru-Murthy, has withdrawn her claim.
