Former BBC Radio Leeds presenter Liz Green has told the Sunday Times she is “bloody angry” at the corporation after the corporation issued an official apology for its handling of the Alex Belfield stalking affair last week.
The BBC’s statement was signed off by head of nations Rhodri Talfan Davies rather than director-general Tim Davie, who Green says should have made the apology as “editor-in-chief” of the broadcaster.
Green reportedly suffered a decade-long abuse ordeal at the hands of the former presenter, who is currently in prison after being found guilty of stalking charges in 2022, along with three other females colleagues, but told the Times that their claims were only taken seriously when Belfield also targeted Radio 2 mainstay Jeremy Vine.
Green’s ordeal began in 2011 when she made a documentary for BBC Radio Leeds which involved taking two teenagers, one Jewish and one Muslim, to Auschwitz. Her reporting won an award, but was also the starting point for more than ten years of harassment by Belfield, who posted about it on Twitter suggesting Green should be sent to Auschwitz herself.
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Green claims that the BBC told her at the time that it was “only a tweet” when she raised it, but the avalanche of tweets, emails and YouTube videos that followed from him caused her such stress that her hair began to thin and she contemplated suicide.
She told the Sunday Times she bears no malice for Belfield who “is what he is,” but added: “I’m bloody angry at the BBC. It is one of the greatest broadcasting institutions in the world but it almost killed me.”
Last week’s statement from the corporation read: “We recognise that before 2019, we simply didn’t do enough for these members of staff in understanding the full impact that Belfield’s unacceptable behaviour had on them.”
However Green, who left the BBC two years ago, told the Times: “Tim Davie is the editor-in-chief. He owes us that apology.”
Belfield was suspended in 2010 after making inappropriate comments to a female weather presenter live on air, and left the broadcaster shortly afterwards to set up his own alt-right YouTube channel.
Green has claimed that the BBC only started taking claims of harassment seriously when “high-profile men” such as Mr Vine, became the subject of his abuse.
She said: “They didn’t think we were worth the hassle. We were just four women in Leeds.”
Vine said during the Belfield court case that his own experience with the convicted stalker “launched incredible hate against me. I had 5,000 to 10,000 hateful personal tweets as a direct result of Belfield.”
He added: “He kept on and on. I was anxious. I couldn’t eat or sleep for a time. I felt wounded and felt there was absolutely no escape. We are dealing with serious criminality here. This is not a regular troll. This is the Jimmy Savile trolling. Every reference to him makes my flesh creep. All he does is lie.”
In September 2022, Belfield was found guilty of ‘simple stalking’ charges against Vine and theatre blogger Philip Dehany, and two further charges of stalking to cause alarm and distress to former BBC Radio Northampton DJ Bernie Keith and videographer Ben Hewis. He was found not guilty of stalking in relation to Green, Hirst, Thomas and Breen, but was given an indefinite restraining order.
The BBC paid for counselling for Green and launched Operation Blackbird to stop Belfield’s abuse, however, it dchose not to open an independent investigation and instead opted for an internal review.
Belfield is due to be released in June, and is already plugging a 2026 “Jack and the Beanstalker” panto on his website, which also features a countdown timer where fans can check how long remains until his release from prison.
A BBC spokesman told Prolific North: “The apology was made with the full backing of the Director-General Tim Davie who is very sorry for what they experienced.”
