View from City Road: Question of guilt still up in the air

SHAREHOLDERS in British Airways may wonder what the world is coming to when their company can engage in a dirty tricks campaign against a rival that ranges from tapping into computer files and poaching passengers to shredding documents, hiring private detectives and disseminating smear stories - yet concludes that the only head that needs to roll is that of the PR man.

David Burnside, BA's director of public affairs, is no angel. But nor is he on the board of BA, which yesterday accepted collective responsibility for the 'disreputable' activities directed against Virgin, and nor does he work in the department responsible for the most serious of those activities. BA may have shot the messenger but the gun continues to smoke.