Camelot TV claims rejected

The National Lottery operator Camelot's complaint against a BBC Panorama programme in which the Virgin boss Richard Branson (left) alleged that he had been offered a bribe by Camelot was thrown out by the Broadcasting Standards Commission yesterday.

In the programme last December, Mr Branson claimed that Guy Snowdon, head of computing company GTech and a member of the Camelot consortium, offered him an "inducement" to pull out of bidding for the lottery before the franchise was awarded. Camelot complained to the Broadcasting Standards Commission that the programme acted unfairly because it did not fully inform the company of the seriousness of the programme's allegations before interviewing one of its senior staff, did not allow the company to put its side of the story and edited the programme in a selective and unfair manner. The BSC rejected all of Camelot's complaints. Paul McCann