Lord Ryder of Wesnum

Chairman of the Governors of the BBC

Broadcasting House
Portland Place
London W1A 1AA
13 March 2004

Dear Lord Ryder,

Please find enclosed for your consideration a copy of my complaint of today to the BBC’s Acting Director
General Mark Byford.
My complaint concerns the BBC’s sustained censorship of an exhaustive investigation conducted by another
freelance journalist and myself into what you will undoubtedly agree is one of this country’s biggest, longest-
running political controversies of modern times: the so-called “Neil Hamilton cash for questions” affair.
Concerning as it does one the most serious charges to be levelled at a broadcaster operating in a democracy
my submission is necessarily comprehensive. Nevertheless, I have done my best to present it in a way that
will allow you and your colleagues to assess both its gravity and its validity in the minimum amount of time.
A reading of my letter to Mr. Byford, followed by a digest of just the indexes of the three bundles of
appendices, should take you no more than 15-20 minutes and will most certainly impart that this is an issue
that goes to the heart of the function of democracy; and that, as such, it merits your further attention.
You will see that my letter to Mr. Byford refers to the three bundles of appendices, enclosed. Unfortunately,
due to the limitations of photocopying and size-reduction there are some documents within these bundles that
are difficult or impossible to read. Mindful of this I have reproduced all the documents that make up this
submission on a CD, which I have also enclosed. Opening this CD will reveal my letter of complaint and the
indexes to the three bundles (all of which are written in MS Word). You will see that my letter to Mr. Byford
contains hyperlinks to quality scans of the newspaper articles to which I refer in the letter; while the three
indexes contain hyperlinks to quality scans of the documents that make up each bundle (some of which are in
colour). All of these documents, when opened, can be enlarged on a computer screen until the ideal size is
obtained for comfortable reading.
I am, of course, willing to answer your questions; and willing to provide you and your colleagues with
whatever documentary evidence concerning our investigation and the efforts I have undertaken to have our
investigation aired that you might wish to examine.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Boyd Hunt