UK – Russel Brand England Naira Marley Bully As UK “mohbads” Call Actor and Comedian Out

The BBC’s toxic culture enabled Russell Brand – I know, I was there
As a long-serving 6 Music DJ, I witnessed the favouritism and rule-breaking that allowed Brand’s bullying to go unchecked

The Sachsgate controversy involving Brand and Jonathan Ross (right) allowed internal concerns about him to become public
We all know by now that, for years, Russell Brand has been humping and dumping women on an industrial scale. Other phrases could apply but they are either too polite or more crude.

He’s hardly made a secret of it, or held back on the vernacular himself.

But, now that his indiscreet boasts have been dissected and documented by Channel 4, we wait on the police investigation into the reported allegations against him to see if it results in any criminal charges. To be honest, I’d prefer to see anyone have their day in court rather than endure a trial by media – mainstream and social.

My beef is not with Brand. It’s about the BBC management culture that prevailed and permitted his antics at Radio 2 and 6 Music from 2006 to 2008, when he was allowed to indulge in narcissistic and reckless behaviour on the shop floor and to serve up his own brand of childish, self-serving, point-scoring bile on air – leaving behind him a trail of ruined careers and shattered lives.

Liz Kershaw: Brand had the ‘unwavering support’ of Radio 2 and 6 Music controller CREDIT: Rii Schroer
I worked there and was privy to this and my hope is that, 16 years since all my futile efforts to enlighten the powers that were, this will now be exposed. I’m pleased that, quite rightly, questions are at last being asked about his conduct and others. Who facilitated it? Who endorsed it? Who indulged him? Who effectively covered up for him?

And I’m encouraged that one name keeps coming up: Lesley Douglas.

She was the controller of Radio 2 and 6 Music from 2003 and was finally nailed for having allowed Brand to blatantly bully and humiliate his co-workers, critics and even a national treasure, Andrew Sachs, on the biggest radio station in the UK, when her one-word email came to light.

An executive producer had emailed her to ask if the Sachsgate show should go out – he had just listened to it, checking for compliance with BBC editorial standards, and what he heard disturbed him. Douglas’s characteristically terse reply was simply: “Yes.”

She was forced to resign, but only after two weeks of stalling. DJ Paul Gambaccini told BBC Radio 5 Live at the time that Lesley Douglas had insisted hiring Brand was a good move for Radio 2 but that he had warned her not to as it would “end in tears”.

‘He was alienating almost everyone’
Lesley Douglas had form when it came to protecting her Russell.

“The fact is that he was her pet, and she let him get away with so many outrageous things.” said Gambo. “Lesley had a commitment to Russell which was almost obsessive. That is to say, she stood by him through thick and thin even while he was alienating almost everyone else.”

Not half! In his 12-month tenure on 6 Music, Russell Brand saw off various producers. And ultimately her.

As controller of 6 Music, Douglas replaced most of its starting line-up of trusted DJs with comedians – Stephen Merchant, John Richardson, Russell Howard, John Holmes, and later, Adam and Joe. She always had an eye for young male talent and in 2006 reeled in her biggest catch – Russell Brand.

Even in the face of objections from production staff, presenters and the listeners. This was a music station for music lovers. The type who bought albums and went to festivals. Everyone wondered just exactly what Russell Brand was bringing to the party? Not Lesley. He was her weakness.

I’d encountered her before I became part of her empire, on joining BBC 6 Music in 2002 as part of its launch line-up. She’d show up at industry events and BBC drinks parties. I’m no wilting wallflower, but she was scary. Not a warm woman, towards other women anyway.

As one veteran presenter said to me this week: “She revelled in being surrounded by her boys.”

Women were few and far between on Radio 2, with Janice Long on from midnight and Sarah Kennedy from 5 to 6.30 am. Apart from these three and a half hours in 24, it was back-to-back blokes. “Does the BBC think you ladies are vampires?” I was once asked by a listener.

In early 2003, Jim Moir announced he was retiring as head of Radio 2 and 6 Music. He was of his time, but a great boss: a real people person. Of course, the BBC advertised for applicants. But we all knew the job was already Lesley’s.

Rule by fear and favour
From 2003 to 2008 she ruled by fear and favour. And, as I suspected, one of the first things she did was to take me off weekdays and shunt me to weekends. In 2006, I voluntarily gave up my Sunday show on 6 Music because I was now presenting Monday to Friday breakfast on BBC local radio and I needed a day off. I’d still do Saturdays on 6, but Lesley now had a hole to fill on Sundays. And so, before long, she was able to sign up Russell Brand.

I’m sure he’d been on her radar for a while. He was all over the telly, and his agent supplied most of Radio 2’s stars. There would have been lunches with Lesley, and I’m sure Brand would have used those occasions to charm the pants off her, as they say.

Almost immediately, thanks to the unwavering support of Lesley Douglas, he took his first BBC scalp.

Leona McCambridge had produced the Sunday slot with me for years but lasted one show with Brand. Not even that. During that very first pre-recording, every time she tried to tell Brand that something he wanted to do or say was unfit for broadcast he kicked off. He then got out his phone and made a call. Lesley Douglas appeared in the studio and sent Leona back to her desk. Ric Blaxhill, the head of programmes, was summoned and from then on was assigned to produce Brand’s pre-recorded shows.

Those shows included interactive competitions meaning that listeners who texted or emailed during the show, believing they were in with a chance of winning, were wasting their time. With written permission from Lesley, I’d pre-recorded the occasional show too. She’d even had it put in my contract. The policy was to do them “as live”, so to include all the usual features, including competitions. And of course, as a senior BBC manager on £250,000-a-year, she was surely aware of the output of 6 Music and Radio 2.

I’d always felt bad about faking competitions, especially when I saw all the emails that listeners had sent in at my behest and in good faith while I’d actually been off enjoying myself elsewhere. It made me feel like a bit of a s— actually. I was soon to feel a lot worse.

Great purge
It became known as The Great BBC Competition Scandal of 2007. To cut a long and complex story short, the BBC was under the spotlight after a trailer misleadingly suggested that the Queen had stormed out of a photoshoot with Annie Leibowitz. Then director-general Mark Thompson, a devout Catholic who had seriously considered the monastic life before opting for the media, decided to purge himself by opening a corporate confessional. An email was sent to producers: were there any other production practices that could potentially land the BBC in more hot water?

Leona ‘fessed up to us faking competitions. Thompson went public and my face was splashed across the media with the caption “cheat”. Lesley Douglas fired Leona, and when MPs asked for me to be taken off air, I was suspended for six months. I used that time to gather evidence that Leona and I were not mavericks, but just following common practice endorsed by management. I took evidence to Jenny Abramsky, the director of radio, that Russell Brand’s show was doing the same thing.

The day after I’d reported Russell Brand’s show to Jenny, I got an early morning call from Lesley Douglas.

“Hello, Liz here.”

“What the hell are you playing at?”

“Sorry?”

“What do you think you’re doing dragging Russell into all this?”

The scandal ended with an Ofcom investigation, which fined the BBC heavily. Leona was unfired and I was put back on air after the six month suspension. But Lesley had already squeezed my three-hour show to two. There was no more work on Radio 2 covering for Janice and others. For the next 14 years that was it, just two hours of work a week for me from the BBC.

But Brand? Lesley Douglas had him promoted to Radio 2, where he continued unsanctioned until late 2008.

Brand was doing whatever he wanted on Radio 2 for £4,000 a show. As he hinted in his second autobiography, Booky Wook 2, he’d allegedly been having sex with Radio 2 competition winners in the toilets while presenting the show. He wrote that Lesley Douglas, the controller of Radio 2 at the time, was “incredibly tolerant” of his behaviour.

On one occasion, Brand exposed himself on air and urinated into a bottle, in front of people reportedly to include a child.

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A statement from a lawyer for Ms Douglas was read out on Channel 4’s Dispatches; “Ms Douglas did not at any time encourage, enable and/or fail herself to take any adequate steps within her power with regard to the conduct of Mr Brand of which she was aware. She is unable to provide any further information which may be relevant to the matters due to the obligations owed by her to her former employer.”

She left the BBC after 22 years with an unconfirmed lump sum of around £250,000, and with her enormous BBC pension intact.

This week, a veteran radio DJ told me that when he brought up Brand’s on-air behaviour with Douglas, she told him that “the talent gets what the talent wants.”

I’ve tried to alert BBC bosses to the senior management style at Radio 2 and 6 Music over the years. In 2007, I went to see Mark Thompson, but he said we all had to move on.

In 2014, I personally delivered a copy of my book, The Bird and The Beeb – which contained details about the favouritism shown towards Russell Brand – to the then director-general Tony Hall, but got no response.

They were not listening. Perhaps they’ll listen now.

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