Amid all the headlines about the repercussions following Martin Bashir’s devious tactics to obtain an interview with Princess Diana, one in particular caught my eye.

It read, ‘BBC to pay five million pounds’. Let’s just think about this. The BBC is funded by the public. The public were the victims of Martin Bashir’s duplicity, so is this not a double whammy?

Last year the BBC reneged on a promise it gave the government that it would continue to fund free TV licences for pensioners.

Five million pounds equates roughly to thirty thousand licence payers, many of whom could be pensioners who may have had to forego heating and eating to find the money.

Surely if any fines are to be levied or compensation paid, the money should come not from the public, but from the pockets of the BBC bosses who were responsible for this fiasco.

D Walker