BBC Radio 2

THE BBC has been accused of enabling Russell Brand with the disgraced star claiming his Beeb boss was “incredibly tolerant” of his behaviour.

Brand, 51 – due to be sentenced on Monday – is being monitored around the clock by guards after he was found guilty on Thursday.

Brand was facing trial for three counts of rape, one count of attempted indecent assault and three counts of sexual assault.

Following eight and a half hours of deliberation the jury delivered guilty verdicts on three counts of sexual assault and one count of rape, bringing the four-week trial at Southwark Crown Court to a close.

He was refused bail and was sent down to the cells with two female dock officers after the verdict was handed down.

The jury found Brand guilty of groping an MTV worker during a party at a Soho bar in 2004, but not guilty of going on to rape her in a toilet.

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He was also convicted of kissing and groping a Capital Radio worker after encountering her in a corridor in 2005.

And, he was found guilty of raping a 21-year-old fan at his Hampstead house after meeting her at a 2009 stand-up show at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Brand was also convicted by the jury of sexually assaulting a Channel 4 worker in 2009 when she had been forced to give him a massage.

The convictions piled further pressure on the BBC after it was revealed Brand had boasted his boss at the Beeb was “incredibly tolerant” of his sexual behaviour.

Britain’s public broadcaster has faced scrutiny over the actions of its stars in the past, including Huw Edwards and Jimmy Savile.

Channel 4 and MTV are also now under the spotlight for their alleged failures in how Brand’s behaviour was managed.

Liz Kershaw, a radio DJ who worked with the BBC for some 30 years, accused the corporation of “enabling Brand’s behaviour.”

Writing in The Telegraph, she said: “Maybe his enablers should finally have been brought to book. Media executives, comedy club promoters.

“His agent. After all, as Brand once said, ‘people will let you be a nutter as long as they are making money out of it.’”

Brand claimed in the mid-2000s that Lesley Douglas, his boss when he worked at BBC 2, “loved me and gave me lots of room – so I took that room.”

He claimed this included allowing him to use the disabled toilets for sex with radio competition winners.

Brand was also accused of raping two more women and could now face further criminal charges, it was revealed after the verdicts.

The court heard that one of the complaints comes from a woman who dated Brand when he was 30 years old and another was a 16-year-old schoolgirl.

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed that investigations are ongoing into the two allegations made against Brand.

After today’s guilty verdicts were delivered, Brand’s barrister launched into an extraordinary foul-mouthed rant at a journalist as he left the courtroom.

Ian Winter KC launched into the verbal tirade at Sunday Times journalist Rosamund Urwin.

He said to her: “I hope you are pleased with yourself”, and she was heard replying: “I’m pleased justice has been done.”

Mr Winter said during the clash: “Well, it wasn’t. You f***** it.” “Congratulations,” he added.

During the trial, Mr Winter had argued that reporting of allegations against Brand by Ms Urwin and others had “poisoned the well”, and rendered it impossible for him to have a fair trial.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, dismissed an attempt by Brand to block his trial from taking place because of negative media coverage.

Brand tried to smear journalists as “criminals” and claimed women accusing him of abuse were “fictional” in a doomed bid to avoid trial.

He argued he had been “destroyed” by a “trial by media” when the Times, the Sunday Times and a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary exposed him as a sexual predator in 2023.

A series of women came forward to police afterwards, speaking out about being raped, forcibly kissed and groped by Brand during his showbiz career.

Media claims published in 2023 sparked a criminal investigation and Brand was interviewed under caution four times between November 2023 and January 2024.

The former BBC Radio 2 presenter went on trial after he was accused of offences against six women from 1999 to 2009.

Brand denied all the charges, insisting any sexual contact was consensual.

The court heard how Brand became a “ruthless, calculated and manipulative” predator as he sought to satisfy his “voracious” sexual appetite as part of a depraved campaign to sleep with 5,000 women.

During the trial,  Brand’s lawyer Ian Winter, had argued that reporting of allegations against Brand by Ms Urwin and others had “poisoned the well”, and rendered it impossible for him to have a fair trial.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, dismissed an attempt by Brand to block his trial from taking place because of negative media coverage.

Brand tried to smear journalists as “criminals” and claimed women accusing him of abuse were “fictional” in a doomed bid to avoid trial.

He argued he had been “destroyed” by a “trial by media” when the Times, the Sunday Times and a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary exposed him as a sexual predator in 2023.

The convictions sparked claims the BBC and other broadcasters turned a blind eye to Brand’s behaviour.

An internal corporation report, published in 2023, found that numerous complaints about Brand had been ignored.

His former BBC boss previously issued a statement via a spokesperson.

It read: “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.”

Following Brand’s conviction, a BBC spokesperson said: “Firstly, the thoughts of everyone at the BBC are with the brave women who came forward and told their stories which led to a conviction in this case.

“There can be no place for the abuse of power.

“Across the industry, we must work together to ensure that anyone who suffers at someone else’s hand feels able to report it, that their concerns are taken seriously and that they are listened to.

“We published a detailed report in January 2025 into how complaints about Russell Brand’s conduct were handled. This looked at eight allegations of misconduct while he worked here between 2006 and 2008.

“It was of great concern to us that some people felt unable to raise concerns about Brand’s behaviour. We apologised to those impacted, for both the culture and failings at the time, and we reiterate that apology again today.”

The Sun has contacted the BBC for comment.

FOR eight years, Sara Cox was forever the bridesmaid, never the bride.

At long last, then, on a bright, sunny Monday morning in July, the broadcaster got her big day, becoming the long-overdue host of Radio 2’s Breakfast Show.

The first two tracks played?

Lizzo’s About Damn Time and CeCe Peniston’s Finally.

Which tells you all you need to know about this brilliantly witty DJ: She says it as she sees it, and has fun along the way.

“Was it deliberate?”, she says, smiling. “Of course — I was being cheeky.

“On the day itself though, I actually felt fine, not that nervous. It was a job I’ve wanted for so long that it just felt like . . . finally.

“And when I thought about About Damn Time, it did make me smile.

“I thought, ‘Start as you mean to go on’. I just wanted to be me, which essentially is a little bit cheeky.

“Luckily, the reaction’s been great. We have the best listeners in the world and I have the best job in the world. I’ve got an incredible team, a brilliant bunch of people like me who are massive radio geeks, and I love it.”

While some may have crumpled under the pressure of hosting the ­biggest gig on the airwaves, the unflappable former model has taken it all in her leggy stride.

An instant hit with listeners — she was also a long-time favourite with devotees of her former gig, the Drivetime show — Sara has introduced new games and inter­active formats to keep things fresh.

Lucky listeners can win a pair of branded “Sara Sox” socks (clean) should they triumph in games such as Let’s Hear It For The Noise, a fiendishly difficult memory challenge.

(Behind the scenes, she is incredibly hands-on, WhatsApping her team with ideas around the clock, I’m told.)

Having been relentlessly badgering Sara’s team for an interview, today, then, is my Big Day. Finally.

Invited to spend a morning in the life of the Bolton-born 51-year-old, things kick off, rather unpleasantly, with a 4.50am alarm call.

Entering the BBC’s flagship London building in the dark, I am tired and grumpy. Sara is not.

In the studio, she dances to tracks, chats to her listeners before and after they call (apparently, many DJs don’t bother with such niceties), and cheerfully munches on an avocado wrap she brought in from home.

The super-fit mum of three — who last year smashed a gruelling 135- mile run across five consecutive days, raising £11.7million for Children In Need — also stands up for the entirety of her three-hour show.

I am exhausted just watching her.

I used to sit down doing the radio but not any more,” she says.

“I like to move around. But it’s also for the leg region. the late (TV health expert) Michael Mosley did a podcast on inflammation — if you sit down for too long, your cells start making the inflammation. So, sadly, it’s not for a rock ’n’ roll reason.”

On the subject of rock ’n’ roll, to a legion of geriatric millennials like me, and Gen Xers, Sara came to the fore as a “ladette”.

Former Breakfast show host Zoe Ball, Sara — back then on Radio 1 — Denise van Outen, Meg Mathews, Sadie Frost, et al, were entrenched in pop culture of the Nineties.

With a motto of “work hard, play hard”, Sara and her pals were endlessly papped hanging out at celebrity hotspots such as London’s Met Bar.

Yet those days are long gone — so much so, the charismatic star is now teetotal. Plus, constant cameras — filmed clips of the show are put out on the station’s official Instagram page — mean it would be nigh-on impossible to hide a hangover.

She says with a laugh: “I mean, you saw the Radio 1 pap shots of me leaving the building — I literally look like I’d slept in a skip. It was great.

“But yeah, it’s all visualised now, and I get it, we are evolving. I can get away with putting my make-up on during a record. A bit of mazzie (mascara) and I’m good to go.

“Today, though, I don’t drink. I’ve not drank since February after my last pina colada in half-term.

“I do feel better for it. To be fair, I was drinking so little, maybe one unit a week, that when I did drink, it was making me feel dizzy and weird.

“Plus, my husband Ben hasn’t drunk for four or five years so that makes it easier/wears you down.

“I mean, you feel a complete lush having half a glass of malbec of an evening otherwise.”

She has been married to marketing executive Ben Cyzer, who she met at Glastonbury Festival, since 2013. They are blissfully happy. Presumably, though, Ben was less thrilled with his wife’s career reawakening and the unsociable hours?

Sharing her new routine, she says: “I am in bed by 9pm. When I started the job, I was setting my alarm at five, but then I was really rushing about and I thought, ‘No, Sara, make it a tiny bit earlier’. So, at 4.50am off goes the first one.

“Then Alexa is on stand-by at 4.55, and if things have gone really wrong, 5.05am and 5.06am are also set on my phone.

“And my husband, bless him, checks the doorbell sometimes to make sure I’ve actually gone.

“I am a light sleeper, so a lot of the time I take myself off to the spare room, because I’m getting up so early and need to sleep well.

“And also because he doesn’t want to go to bed at 9.15pm, because he’s an adult male. He’s a normal person.

“Then Friday and Saturday, it feels like quite a treat and it’s quite nice to be back together.”

After feeding the couple’s three cats, Watson, Peggy and Miso, she takes a home-made breakfast to eat in the studio and glugs a coffee in the car on the way in. (“I eat very quickly, like a seabird”).

Her first-day guest was Hollywood’s Tom Hanks — and on the day I visit, Canadian comedian Katherine Ryan joins her.

So who would her dream guests be? “Daniel Craig — we’ve just had M, Dame Judi Dench, so we should have Bond too. Tom Cruise would be wild — we’ve had The Hanks, and I’d love to work towards completing the Hollywood set.”

“Also on the list is Beyonce — “I interviewed her when I was pregnant with my son and he’s 18 now, so we’re well overdue a catch-up.” And Madonna — “I interviewed her at Radio 1 and offered her my spare room ’cos she was house-hunt­ing in the UK . . . The offer’s still on.”

Sara got the Breakfast Show gig at a challenging time for the BBC.

Previous host Scott Mills was fired over a historical allegation of a sexual offence.

It has since emerged the axed DJ has enlisted lawyers and is planning to sue the corporation.

Not surprisingly, questions about him are off the table. And 72 hours after my visit, a story comes out in the Press, with insiders claiming to have felt “uncomfortable” due to her habit of calling mistakes out on air.

Well, having chatted to four of her team, including her producer, and seen Sara mucking about with colleagues, I can testify it appears to be a very happy ship indeed.

A perfectionist she may be, but a tyrant she ain’t.

And listener figures for the show in the last few years have stayed solid at around 6.37million weekly.

Elsewhere, though, it is a challenging time generally for legacy media, as audiences consume their content largely online, on streaming services and platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

So does Sara, who has written four Sunday Times best- selling novels, think radio will still be around in a decade? Yes.

“I think it’ll always be there be­cause people will always want that connection and that friendship that they have with their DJ,” she says.

“There’s a lot of people who listen who won’t speak to anybody else for the rest of the day, so it’s important.

“But at the same time, we’ve just got to keep being innovative. And for younger audiences as well, we film everything. We’ve got a brilliant young socials team who are constantly coming up with great ideas for TikTok and Instagram.

“I really enjoy it, I love being silly and having fun. You can’t take yourself too seriously, can you?

“I do feel lucky. I really do have ‘pinch me’ moments in this job. I love it, and I really hope it shows.”

It does, Sara, it does.

Zoe Ball’s dad Johnny has accused the BBC of ‘ageism’ following her exit from Radio 2. She left the Breakfast Show after six years and returned later in a different slot but left after seven months

Zoe Ball’s dad Johnny has accused the BBC of ‘ageism’ after his daughter’s exit from Radio 2.

The radio star and presenter left the station’s Breakfast Show after nearly six years at the helm. At the time, she was believed to be earning £950,000. Following her exit from the show, she returned in a different slot.

She went on to present an afternoon Saturday slot in May 2025 but after seven months, she handed the show over to Emma Willis but continued to present special shows for the broadcaster.

Zoe’s dad Johnny – who also worked for the BBC – has now claimed that Zoe’s age had an impact on her exit, he shared: “I did Play School for 17 years, I wrote nearly all of Play Away then I did Think Of A Number and Think Again.

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“I loved every minute of it. But what happens when you are 50 at the BBC? Gone! Zoe was 54. Gone! You cannot believe it because we gave so much to the BBC.”

The Mirror has contacted the BBC for comment.

Zoe has also talked openly about how she missed out on the Strictly role and how it impacted her thoughts about work. It was later confirmed Emma Willis, Josh Widdecombe and Johannes Radebe as the new host.

Speaking at the Dorchester Literary Event, Johnny gave his verdict on the new presenters, adding: “Josh is not a Bruce Forsyth. He is a lovely bloke and I have met him a couple of times but he is not a domineering comedian as some comedians like Bruce Forsyth were. When I did Strictly, and I only did three shows.

“On each show I gave Brucie a joke and he used them and he said to me ‘I have got a writer here and he does b****r all so thanks very much’. And he said to me ‘You should never have gone out’ but that’s another story.”

Zoe had previously shared how she had to think about work once she realised she didn’t bag the Strictly role.

Speaking about her preparations for the “scary” next chapter of her career, she said: “I’m so excited. You know how it’s been, I lost my mum and I was like, ‘I want to take some time to be there for my girl’ because I’ve always worked and never been around.

“And, as I’ve sort of said on the podcast actually, I’ve been around and she’s a bit like, ‘What are you still doing here?’ And she’s finished her GCSEs now, she’s loving her freedom and I think also when the Strictly thing didn’t happen as well, I was a bit like, ‘Right, what am I going to do?’ I mean that was a long shot but having not worked, you suddenly start thinking, ‘Okay yeah I do need to go to work.'”

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KIDS TV legend Johnny Ball has today hit out at the BBC and accused them of ageism.

The national treasure, 88, claims his broadcaster daughter Zoe Ball, now 55, was suddenly “gone” from Radio 2 when she reached the age of 54.

Zoe announced she was leaving her coveted Breakfast Show slot in 2024, after six years at the helm.

The radio star then briefly returned last year for a Saturday slot on Radio 2, but left again in December.

Johnny, who himself had a long career at the Beeb, having fronted kids shows like Play School, has now given his opinion on her departure from the Beeb – after she had worked for them since the 90s.

Speaking at The Dorchester Literary Festival, the TV star said: “I did Play School for 17 years, I wrote nearly all of Play Away then I did Think Of A Number and Think Again.

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‘I loved every minute of it. But what happens when you are 50 at the BBC? Gone! Zoe was 54. Gone! You cannot believe it because we gave so much to the BBC.’

Johnny also gave his verdict on Strictly Come Dancing’s new hosts, Emma Willis, 50, Johannes Radebe, 39, and Josh Widdicombe, 43, after his daughter Zoe missed out on the job.

“Josh is not a Bruce Forsyth. He is a lovely bloke and I have met him a couple of times but he is not a domineering comedian as some comedians like Bruce Forsyth were,” he said.

“When I did Strictly, and I only did three shows, but on each show I gave Brucie a joke and he used them and he said to me ”I have got a writer here and he does b****r all so thanks very much’.

“And he said to me ‘You should never have gone out’ but that’s another story.”

Before quitting Radio 2, Zoe was one of the Beeb’s highest-paid female stars, taking home just under £1M a year.