UK MPs slam ex-BBC chief Entwistle's 450,000 pound pay-off 'despite shaky handling of firm'
London, Nov 12 (ANI)
British lawmakers have slammed the BBC's decision to give its former Director General George Entwistle a 450,000 pounds pay off, the equivalent of 8,000 pounds a day, despite his shaky handling of crisis at the firm.
Entwistle resigned after a Newsnight report led to a former Tory treasurer being wrongly accused of child abuse.
He had only been in the job since 17 September.
According to the BBC, John Whittingdale, Tory chairman of the commons culture committee, said he wanted to know why the BBC Trust thinks the 450,000-pound payout is 'appropriate'.
"A lot of people would be very surprised that somebody who was in the job for such a short period of time and then had to leave in these circumstances should be walking away with 450,000 pounds of licence fee-payers' money," the report quoted him, as saying.
According to the report, Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman also said the payout was 'not justifiable'.
Entwistle was criticised as being painfully slow in setting up inquiries over why a Newsnight programme which would have exposed Savile as a paedophile months earlier was axed.
But the final nail in his coffin was the disclosure that the same show wrongly implicated Lord McAlpine in an abuse scandal in the 70s and 80s.