BBC to pay £30,000 to Liza Begum, a British-Bangladeshi councillor, for identity mix-up

The BBC has agreed to pay £30,000 in damages to a British-Bangladeshi Labour councillor in London after it mixed her up in a news item with an MP facing housing fraud charges, The Guardian reports.

Pictures of Liza Begum at an event to launch Labour’s 2019 race and faith manifesto were broadcast on BBC London News during an exchange on Oct 29, 2020, in which the BBC London political correspondent said: “This is Apsana Begum … she faces three charges of dishonesty,” according to the report.

Although the correspondent said that Apsana Begum, who is also a British-Bangladeshi, had vigorously contested the “false and malicious allegations” – she would later be acquitted – the BBC admitted that the meaning of the BBC One broadcast was that “there are reasonable grounds to suspect that [Liza Begum] had engaged in housing fraud”.

A statement read out in court on Tuesday said: “The misidentification caused Ms Begum particular distress because it seemed another example of the BBC, and the media generally, misidentifying BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) people, which fed into racist tropes.

 “She was particularly distressed that the confusion was of two women of colour appearing at a race and faith event, and that nobody in the BBC corrected it before the film of her was broadcast,” The Guardian quoted the court as saying.

Liza first contacted the BBC on the night of the offending broadcast and an apology was broadcast in the following day’s bulletin. She then began an action for defamation, also requesting that the BBC publicly commit to new processes to prevent the misidentification of BAME people, said the report.

Rahman Lowe, her solicitor, sent a letter of claim citing previous examples of the BBC confusing the black Labour MPs Dawn Butler and Marsha de Cordova, and the black basketball players LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

The corporation responded to it and also said that the letter of claim had “cite[d] examples of misidentifications by other media organisations which have nothing to do with race or background”.

Liza claimed it is unacceptable that the media make such errors and it reflects a deep-seated notion that all people of colour look the same, the report said.

“The high court heard how the BBC refused to make a public commitment to put processes in place to guard against this in future,” she said.

BBC said in the court that it could not report to Liza on processes that it would put in place to guard against misidentification because it would be inconsistent with its independence and accountability to its regulator.

Liza was elected to Westminster council, central London in 2021, having previously been a Labour party activist and community and social housing campaigner.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We are very sorry for the distress this has caused. It was a genuine mistake during a live programme that arose from archive footage being incorrectly labelled in our system. We apologised on air at the first opportunity and took immediate steps to correct our system”.

“We recognise we must do better so have taken steps internally to avoid similar situations occurring,” he added.