Speaker 1The Telegraph Lucy Conn, you had a glittering career at
Speaker 2the BBC as a documentary maker, but you ended up departing from the corporation, saying that you had experienced anti-Semitism from members of the staff, and you received a very large payout. Before we come around to what you experienced, just give us a sense of what it was like as a Jewish person working at the BBC. What was it like working at the BBC before October the 7th?
Speaker 1When I got my first, as I would call it, proper job at the BBC as a junior producer on the Today programme in my mid-twenties, I remember my mother saying to me, be careful how often you talk about being Jewish, and in particular, how often you talk about Israel. And I didn't completely understand why I needed to be careful, but I mean, I did understand, but I didn't think that that was okay. And then I was surprised. I was surprised when I got to the Today programme, when I went there, Roger Mosey was the editor and Rod Little was the deputy editor, how comfortable I felt talking about Israel and how people would often refer to me because they knew that when I was younger, before I went to university, I'd studied the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I'd studied Middle East politics and history, and with lecturers who were both Israeli and Arab. People would come to me and ask me what I thought, or when there were lots of Israeli elections, about them because, as you know, Israel has a very pure form of proportional representation, and they ended up having elections every year, or more than every year. So I would be the person who knew about stuff, and they would get me to write the briefings for presenters and be the specialist, which was great. I was very young. And so I didn't feel particularly scared, but I did understand that I shouldn't go waving a flag saying I was a Zionist all the time. Over the years, I was conscious of the fact that I did need to, well, I wanted to make sure that people understood what kind of a Zionist I was, which in hindsight, I don't think I should have had to do, because that's my business. It's kind of like saying, what politics do you support? It's my business. But I did try and justify the kind of Zionist I was because I wanted people to know that I was, as far as I saw it, an acceptable Zionist. I believe that there should be no doubt about that. I believe that there should be two states. I mean, the way things are at the moment, it's really, really terrifying that there probably won't be peace in my time or my kids' lifetimes. But I don't want anyone to have to die on either side because of the right of the Jewish people to a homeland in their historic homeland. I'm a two-state Zionist, so I would say that to people. I had some colleagues who would say, oh, well, that's okay then. Oh, you're an okay Zionist then. And that did make me feel uncomfortable. And prior to October the 7th, about a year earlier, I was working with somebody who did challenge me about my Zionism, who I did explain what kind of a Zionist I was. And she said, that's okay then. And a little bit later, I commissioned a film from a Palestinian director. And his film was nothing to do with what's going on now. It was a year before October the 7th. It was about a child growing up in Beirut. And when I said to my colleague that I really wanted to look after that film, the reaction I got was that she wishes that her family had known that she was working with my kind of Jew. Right. And that surprised me.
Speaker 2Right. And then October the 7th. Yeah. And then presumably, it was horrific and traumatic time, and presumably suddenly politics was being discussed in the production rooms at the BBC. And what sort of things were said?
Speaker 1Well, I was never afraid to talk about what I felt. And I was used to, you know, I had grown up, so to speak, in news and current affairs. And I had, you know, most recently prior to doing the job that I was doing when I left, I was working as an executive producer on Panorama, and before that on Dispatches, doing quite hardcore investigations. My job was always about exposing the truth and wrongdoing in places and amongst people. And I wasn't afraid to talk about where I thought things were wrong. I didn't think that I was putting myself at risk in any way. But I spoke to a colleague on October the 7th. As things were unfolding, our conversation was based initially on the fact that we were having a conversation about a film about Ukraine that was covered on the Today program that I had really wanted us to acquire. Because in the job that I was doing, we both acquired and commissioned films. They were having a really good chat about it on the Today program. I sent this colleague, go, what's that message saying? Have you heard what's going on today? And then I said something about, I think, have you seen what's going on in Israel? And the phone rang and the colleague called me. And we carried on having the conversation about the Ukraine film. And then I thought, hang on a minute, I just sent this message about what's going on in Israel. And I. I think I and most other Jews that I know were really surprised by how we felt, even from that first moment. I never imagined for a moment that anything could be so horrific and that I would feel it so much, even though it wasn't happening to me, it was happening to my people. And I don't think I would have ever called them my people before, but it was. They were trying to kill all Jews that day. If you watch any of the footage, it's really clear that that was the aim. Get rid of all the Jews. That's genocide. Mm-hmm. By the way. But I interrupted and I said, "Have you seen what's going on in Israel? Hamas are evil, aren't they?" And the response I got was, "So are the Zionists." And I was slightly shocked and I was like, "What?" And then I got, "Evil Hamas, evil Zionists," as though they're the same thing. And this person knew I was a Zionist. We just moved on, the conversation ended quite quickly. We moved on. I didn't want to talk about it on the Monday. I was still really shaken up. I went to, it wasn't a rally, it was what was pitched as a memorial service outside Downing Street at the end of the road, opposite Downing Street, for the people who'd been murdered on October the 7th. We still didn't really know how many people had been murdered or how many people had taken hostage. I went because I thought it was a memorial. I know the rules of the BBC and I would not have gone if I'd thought it was going to be political in any way. Or there'd be Israeli flags being. I mean, maybe I should have thought about it. But anyway, I didn't get into trouble for going. But what happened when I was there was I was so surprised, so shocked and so uncomfortable that every single politician and religious leader from all different, you know, sides of the house and from all the regions in this country, every single person, they spoke very briefly about what happened on October the 7th. And then they spoke about the BBC and they were having a go at the BBC for the language it was using. I mean, anyone who watched the BBC. The pictures of October the 7th knew that it was a terrorist attack and that people were being terrorised and that those people weren't soldiers who'd come after them. They were innocent civilians, babies, old people, party goers at a music festival. I don't think we really understood. We didn't really know about Nova at that point. And all they wanted to talk about was the BBC. So I sent a couple of very senior colleagues text messages and emails, not because I wanted to have a go at them or at the organisation. I was still so proud to work for. But I wanted to warn them that the story was becoming the BBC when, in fact, this heinous crime had happened. And that's what I thought people should be talking about. And I was also quite scared at the rally. The event wasn't a rally. If anyone found out that I was working for the BBC, that I might be in a spot of bother. But I did see friends, but I was really, I could feel myself shaking inside. Anyway, the response I got from those colleagues wasn't, oh, thanks for letting us know. It was very defensive about the language. And talking about how we didn't call the IRA terrorists and Hitler terrorists and stuff. And it was just, I was, again, really surprised. I set up a Jewish group a couple of days later and started firefighting on behalf of other Jews in the BBC. I wrote to Tim Davey, the then director general, told him that I didn't think the BBC was institutionally anti-Semitic, but that Jewish staff was struggling. Not just at work with the things we were hearing, but also having to listen to our colleagues say things. And, you know, I was told at one point. That I needed to understand why Hamas did what they did. Well, I don't understand why Hamas raped young women. I saw someone else phone them, their parents, with blood all over their hands, to boast. And I was watching that thinking, oh my goodness, I'm at, my son at that point was 22, probably around the same age that he was. And the young man that he just brutally murdered. And thinking, well, surely his dad's going to say, you need to go and see someone. You know, you need to stop and go and hang yourself in. instead. And they were like, oh, we're so proud of you. Go and kill some more people. And it's just like, none of that.
Speaker 2What is there to understand about that kind of behavior? There's no context.
Speaker 1There's nothing that makes any sense there at all.
Speaker 2Just to step in here, listening to your account of it, what I find so interesting is the BBC might say this is a debate, a reasonable debate about editorial position. But that first conversation you're describing, what you're saying is that the colleague you spoke to, their instinct was to say, when told Hamas is evil, well, the Zionists are evil too, which suggests it's not just a discussion about editorial standards. The position the BBC has taken editorially is perhaps a reflection of some of the prejudice within the staff.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's not across the board with staff. There are some really good people in the BBC.
Speaker 2But you take my point that there's surely a correlation between the two.
Speaker 1But there is a, you know, the BBC has a code of conduct and a set of values. You know, people wear the values. On their lanyards, on their passes that they're supposed to wear all the time when they're walking around Broadcasting House or any other BBC building they might work at anywhere else in the country. And we're supposed to respect each other. And we're also supposed to, you know, we were also told we should bring our authentic selves to work. So whether that was your faith, your philosophical beliefs, your sexuality, your gender, or of your skin, you're supposed to be able to be honest about who you are. That's supposed to help to inform the conversation around the coverage. But it's not supposed to be disrespectful and offensive.
Speaker 2On the contrary, you have said that you felt as though you had the word Jew stamped on your forehead.
Speaker 1By, yeah, by, I mean, around April, May of 2024, absolutely, I had the word Jew stamped on my forehead. I was told it. At one point, you know, I commissioned a film, which I then went on to executive produce, which won an Emmy, which I was very proud of. But I was told initially when I pitched that film to my bosses that we would have to contextualize why Hamas did it and that I wouldn't be able to look after it because I was biased. I was partial was the phrase that was used. Right. And I was like, what do you mean? No one had ever questioned my ability to be impartial. I prided myself. I worked for years on the Today program, on Panorama, on, you know, really important agenda setting programs where understanding Jew impartiality was really key. You know, I'd written right to reply letters to some really important people in institutions where understanding the editorial policy, the law, the Ofcom code, all of those things really mattered. I wouldn't have got those jobs or stayed in those jobs if I hadn't understood the rules. But I was told that I was biased and when I questioned why, I was told it was because I was Jewish. And when I eventually put a grievance in and I only put it in because I was made to, I wasn't given a choice.
Speaker 2You couldn't talk about your own people because you were one of those people.
Speaker 1If I had been any other, from any other group.
Speaker 2Yes. Well, there was a division for gay and lesbian and transgender news, which was explicitly presented by gay and lesbian people.
Speaker 1Yeah, I did in 2014, I think. Yeah. I think it was. I was outside the BBC for a few years and I was asked to do, initially I was asked, I had a call saying, well, I look after a programme that had the working title Kibbutz. And it was to go out on Israel's, for the BBC, it was to go out on Israel's 70th anniversary and it was to look at the relationship between Jewish people in this country and the state of Israel. It ended up, we ended up getting, we were making it while the debate in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn was going on about the, the definition of antisemitism. And it ended up becoming two parts. And the first part was with a group of Jewish people that we recorded. It was kind of called Constructed Reality. A year earlier, the BBC had done Muslims Like Us. A year later, I think it was, they did Black and British. So we took a group of eight Jewish people, we took them to North Manchester to experience, we took them to Heaton Park, to where the stabbing was last year, to experience what it was like to be a British Jew and to look at antisemitism. On campus, as it was at that stage. And then we took them to Israel. Some of them had never been, some of them had, some of them were religious, some of them weren't. And we examined what it was. I, I wasn't allowed to, initially, to hire anyone else on the team that was Jewish. I wasn't allowed. Eventually, I was allowed to bring on one other very junior person to come on, just to come on the trip to Israel. Well, to come, just to come on the filming. She came to Manchester as well. I was allowed to have one other Jewish person on the team. I mean, the team were amazing. The guys who that we, who we hired, and they were much more respectful than I was of Judaism. And I don't mean I'm disrespectful, but they really were amazing. They were, they were really brilliant. But on those other two programs, the production teams had to come from their communities. I have a colleague, when we set up the Jewish group in the BBC and I told a couple of other senior colleagues that I was trying to do it, one of them told me that she had tried a year earlier to set up a Jewish group at the BBC and was told you don't need to do it. The Jewish group at the BBC, Jews run the media. What? Yeah, that's what she was told.
Speaker 2Who was, who told her that?
Speaker 1Somebody in the, someone who did diversity and inclusion.
Speaker 2Within the organization.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. Right.
Speaker 2Okay. That's big. Yeah. So diversity is very important, except for Jewish people. And I was going to ask you, is that because of people feeling politically uncomfortable about Israel? But you saying that suggests it's, it's not even just about Israel.
Speaker 1Well, the thing is.
Speaker 2It's a perception, sorry. It's a perception that Jews actually aren't a minority.
Speaker 1They're not a minority because we look like everyone else. Now I did, I have to say, after George Floyd was murdered, you know, it was during COVID. I was being treated for breast cancer at that point as well. And my bosses were amazing, but I carried on working, which was questioned actually. I discovered when we did a subject access request and one of the, one of the HR, one of the senior people in HR sent, an email to whoever keeps my records, whoever keeps staff records, to find out whether I had had any days off in the last seven years. And she was, I just saw her reply when she was told, no, I hadn't had any that said, oh, that's surprising. That's interesting. Which I was like, I wasn't, I didn't make it up about having breast cancer. That would be a bit of a weird thing to do. I carried on working because I felt that, you know, I wasn't dying from COVID when everyone else was, you know, there were lots of people who were dying from COVID and I ended up doing news pieces about cancer, helped in COVID. But anyway, George Floyd was murdered. And we were all called into the office and we sat, you know, safely, safe distancing and so on. And we had meetings, and this happened across the BBC, where we all listened to our colleagues of colour about what it was like to be a black member of staff at the BBC. And I had naively always thought up until that point, we'll be the same because I'm from a minority too. And, you know, I, I realised I'm not, I'm not the same because I'm not wearing it. I'm not, I'm not wearing it. I'm wearing it now. I never used to, but I mean, it's not the same, obviously, when I, you know, when I'm saying I'm wearing it now, you know, I'm touching my Star of David and I have a high necklace as well, which is to life. But I never wore anything that said I was a Jew and I wasn't wearing it on my skin. So obviously I was, I wasn't the same. And, and I understand that, you know, we do look like the majority in this country. So it's, so it's an, it's a different set of issues, but we are, we are still a minority. And the fact, the idea that Jews were on the media after everything that's happened after the last three years, I mean, it couldn't be more clear. I just can't believe that someone who works in diversity
Speaker 2would say that.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm sure that, you know, they would deny it now. Right. But, and maybe they're not even there anymore. Okay. But when I, when I actually asked.
Speaker 2So it's the one bit of the corporation where you'd kind of hope there wouldn't be racial prejudice. That's right. Is the diversity section.
Speaker 1When I asked, we had lots of meetings, a few of us with, we had with Tim Davey and some of his senior team. And we had at one point with the woman who at that point was head of, Dee and I at the BBC, she's not there anymore. They're probably quite a few people since then. And I said, why aren't we doing those, you know, those kind of round tables where we would sit and listen to our colleagues like we did after George Floyd. And she said in front of a lot of people, we were all on Zoom, that the black staff base didn't think that they worked. They weren't effective enough. I was like, hang on a minute, at least you did something. They might not have been as effective as you hoped, but it was more effective than what's happening now, which is nothing. And people are just having to sit and listen to their colleagues, talk about Zios or the, you know, the IDF being evil people. And, you know, you're not doing anything and you might be having sad faces and holding your heads at an angle going, oh, I'm really sad about this. And we're really sorry, but nothing's happening. When the stabbing happened in Gold Screen, just down the road from where I lived, I felt it was just after I'd left the BBC and I didn't want to leave. They made me redundant. And I felt really strongly that if the coverage had been different, maybe that stabbing wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 3Why do you think this has changed? Because you're saying when you first joined the BBC, that you were warned by your mother about the risk of antisemitism. You didn't find it. And it seems not just in the BBC, but in society more broadly, antisemitism has grown not just following the 7th of October, 2023, which seems the most weird response to a brutal massacre, but it's been growing before that post Jeremy Corbyn and so on within society at large. And I wonder whether you think this is, the BBC representing its own biases, its other biases that come through in this as well, that it's become the fashionable soft left view is regrettably an anti-Semitic one.
Speaker 1I think there's a problem in the BBC with groupthink. And I think groupthink can become very intimidating. I, yeah, I mean, everyone just assumes that you are of a certain mind in terms of your politics. It's just your world view.
Speaker 3And anti-Semitism has become part of that groupthink. And this obviously had an effect on your career that you were made redundant in the end. How did the grievance process work? Because you went through both the grievance process and then the appeal.
Speaker 1Well, initially I, I just asked for help because I was struggling emotionally. And I was told before Christmas 2023 that I could always put an agreement in if I wanted. And I was like, I don't want to, thanks. I don't want to. I'd commissioned the Nova film at that point. I had been allowed to commission the Nova film with somebody else overseeing me. That's a complicated story that I won't go into right now. So I was allowed to be the commissioner, but someone would have to make sure that I wasn't biased.
Speaker 3So the person who was punished for raising the grievance in the first instance was you.
Speaker 1I was punished all the way through, yeah.
Speaker 3By effectively being suspended from going into work.
Speaker 1Over the next few months, I had projects taken away from me. I mean, I was still working on the film that went on to win a BAFTA and an Oscar this year and other films. I was still working on the Nova film, quite a few films. But I was having to do it all from home. Every now and again, I would go into the office because I just wanted to be there. I wanted to be around other people because I'm a team player and I really like working with other people. But I would have to go and hide somewhere. And I was having to watch meetings that were recorded. I was able to join meetings with a small part of the people that I was working with for the first half of the meeting. Then they'd video the whole thing and then they'd get me off the meeting and then the person who the grievance was about would join the meeting. And sometimes I would have to then, I would always watch them, come back as soon as I saw the meeting was over on Teams. And sometimes I'd then have to watch back someone being rude about my projects.
Speaker 3And so the grievance goes and is rejected by the BBC and you appeal. But then the BBC makes a large settlement with you, which would indicate that the BBC feels that its own grievance process didn't work. But otherwise, they don't give people hundreds and thousands of pounds for fun.
Speaker 1Well, I mean, the immediate thing that happened was after the appeal, which was ended in, it took a year. But in December, 2024, the appeal criticized the original grievance process a little bit, said that I was a very valued and important member of the team. I said, can I go back to doing my normal work? Because at that point, I'd been stopped from traveling anywhere, stopped from commissioning films. I was really struggling as well with my mental health. And I'd been sent for a number of occupational health assessments, all of which had said, Lucy will be okay if you just let her do her job. Anyway, I got back to work in January. I say, I need to, doctors were insisting that I take time off. My weight had plummeted very, very low. I really wasn't in a good place. No one, no, no one said anything. I mean, I wasn't, my weight didn't plummet low. I didn't do it on purpose so that people would feel sorry for me or anything. It happened. That was my response. And I say to them, I'm going to take some leave because I've been told by a doctor, I need to take some leave. I was asked a few hours later to come into work the next day. I was sent a text message. Please, can you come into work the next day? I was told that I was going to be given clarity about my job. I go in the next day and I'm told my job is being put at risk of redundancy. And, and then it was a, it was in June. I was interviewed for my job and didn't get it. And then that was the week of the Emmys. And then I went off to the Emmys and was sent an email warning me that I shouldn't say anything on behalf of the BBC when I was at the Emmys. I was not there on behalf of the BBC. I shouldn't go for any meetings on behalf of the BBC. So when we won an Emmy and we went on stage, I was actually terrified. That I might get into trouble for going on stage. And the director thanked me on stage. I was terrified about that.
Speaker 2Your name was actually taken off the credit for a project you'd worked out at the BBC.
Speaker 1My name was taken off the credits for five films that I worked on. It wasn't taken off completely. What happens is on the strand that I was working on, the end credit, the final, we call it an end board, it's the final thing that you see on the screen was always the commissioning editor. So Mr. Nobody against Putin, which is the film that won the Oscar and the BAFTA, first went out in October last year. And my name's on the end board because I was the commissioner and the executive producer. I'd spent a long time working on it and was very proud of it. Um, and it was repeated in February and the week of the BAFTAs this year. Um, and I was still working for the BBC officially at that point, although I'd been completely frozen out. Somebody else had got the job that I hadn't been, I'd been told I wasn't good enough to get and their names on the end board, they hadn't been working at the BBC at that point when we made the film, but hadn't been working on the BBC when the film first went out. There was no reason for them to be on the end board. My name was hidden in the credits and they did that with, with five other films and one film that's yet to go out. So I had to make sure that they didn't, uh, that, so they had to, they had to replace it and it was replaced the week before last. It was part of our settlement. Uh, it's called non-financial remedies that they would replace it.
Speaker 2Well, well, to pick up on Jacob's point, I mean, a settlement does seem to indicate some responsibility or guilt. It's hard not to infer that from it. I must. Let's read the BBC's official response quote, while we do not comment on individual staffing matters, antisemitism in any form is not tolerated at the BBC. If allegations or concerns are raised, they are taken seriously and investigated in accordance with our policies. We have robust procedures in place to deal with any behavior that is contrary to our values. A final, final question to you responding to that official response. Do you think, do you think antisemitism is tolerated at the BBC? I mean, they say
Speaker 1they investigate, they kind of investigated it. The problem is, and it struck me that this is the case for anybody who puts in a grievance, who complains about bullying and harassment or racism in any shape or form is that people who are bullies don't often do it in front of loads of people. Um, and if you have one person saying one thing and someone else saying, oh no, I don't remember that happening. Or that didn't happen. Who do you believe? Um, I said earlier, I had contemporaneous notes that would have been taken seriously in court, but for BBC HR, they weren't good enough. Um, they didn't say HR that it didn't happen. They just said that because it was our words against each other, that they couldn't prove anything. So that means that anyone can get away with anything,
Speaker 2but the, the amount of money you have received does feel like an acceptance that something went wrong in your case. And if one steps back, a Jewish person says they have, uh, been the victim of anti-Semitic language and it's the Jewish person who ends up being told they can't come to the office and the Jewish person who's taken off the credits of productions they've worked on, a Jewish person who's eventually let go. That to me doesn't seem, that
Speaker 1doesn't seem right. Maybe I'm being too forgiving. The larger part of the settlement, it was in two parts. One was for the unfair dismissal claim and the other bit was for the personal injury. I had to have a lot of medical reports for the personal injury and it was very hard for them to say, I mean, there was a direct link made between what was said and done to me and how unwell I ended up being. Um, I was in hospital when we did the mediation. I came out of hospital for the day to, I spent 12 weeks in hospital over the summer, which I'm incredibly embarrassed about. Um, but it was very hard for them to say that the injury hadn't happened. They say they're, you know, they'll say what they say. I know, I know what happened. Um, I'm a, you know, I'm a journalist who's always been respected and has never said anything but the truth. Um, and it's, it's, it's really sad to me that it's like this for the BBC. It's, it's really sad to me that, I mean, I know a lot of Jewish people who've left since I left them before and a lot of Jewish people who are still planning to leave. And the BBC, how can the BBC function without one group in our society not being present? But that's, that's what's on the horizon if things carry on the way they are. And I don't want that to happen. I want the BBC to exist. I want, you know, the, the green paper on the charter renewal talked about including something about how staff are respected and so on. It, it needs to say that, but it also needs to be, they need to practice what they preach. There are signs all over the BBC that say, call it out in relation to bad behaviour. I called it out. I lost my sanity in my job. They broke me.
Speaker 2Thank you very, very much. Thank you. Thank you.
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