in an attempt to answer that, on monday, a long—serving bbc executive, ken macquarrie, produced a report, which found that the recruitment process was targeted to find the right person for the role and was conducted in good faith — but that there were "shortcomings" in the process. some, including john cox, were sceptical about how independent this internal inquiry had been... "good sound policy that the bbc investigates itself?! smells of cover—up." and jenny mullan was prompted into this reaction... "i am wondering if martin bashir is in receipt of a bbc pension. if so, there must be grounds for taking this privilege from him, as he patently does not deserve it." this is how the bbc director general, tim davie, responded to the report. people acted in good faith. i think they were really out to find the right person. i think that when you look at it you say, if they had known what we know now, and this is what the report

said, there is absolutely no way you would have hired martin bashir. they did not have that knowledge of the 96 events and what had happened in terms of martin bashir�*s behaviour to secure the interview with princess diana. if they have that, i don't think anyone would have made the hire. mr davie was back in the public eye on tuesday, appearing in front of a parliamentary select committee along with two previous director generals — lord birt, who was in charge at the time of the princess diana interview, and lord hall, who ran the news division at the time and concluded in a 1996 investigation that martin bashir was a "decent and honourable man". lord hall told the committee that he regretted coming to that verdict, and explained why he didn't involve himself in bashir�*s re—employment. it is not for me to second—guess directors

or people who are running large departments. again, i go back to you trust them to make the judgments today will be sounding out that needs to be done. i trusted a journalist and gave him a second chance. we, the team, gave him a second chance and that trust was abused and was misplaced. in 100 years of bbcjournalism, can we think of anybody else who behave in that kind of way? so, yes, they all believed him, hardened and experience the they were, and we know they were wrong to believe him. well, i'm joined now by another former bbc executive, roger mosey, who was editor of the today programme at the time of the diana interview and went on to be head of television news and editorial director, and left the corporation in 2013. thank you for coming on newswatch. this is a troubling story about people involved in bringing us the news we are supposed to trust, which is why we are

discussing it on newswatch. the bbc investigated bashir itself back in 1996 so why didn't all that we know would now come back then? i think you have to go back to look at the context then. do you have had this amazing scoop in 1995 in the bashir interview with princess diana and then in 1996 awkward questions are asked about it and the bbc starts to investigate but i think you have to remember what the consequences would have been if the bbc had fired bashir and covered every single thing which should happen, which is that it would have been a clear out of the whole bbc management so i suspect that is why some tough questions when asked at the time because if tony hall had had to fire martin bashir he himself would probably have been fired because he was the executive in charge of news which had produced this interview. so, we move on now to the mcquarry report which has just come out. do we now know why martin

bashir was re—employed by the bbc in 2014 and then promoted? i think there are two versions here which are not far apart, really. the version in the report is that the appointment process was handled to a tolerably satisfactory degree. i have to say, reading the reports, it seems to be like it was a bit more of a mess, but i do agree with the conclusion that bashir was not rehired for corruption reasons. it wasn't about trying to keep him silent or covering up, again, what happened in 1996. i think the real answer was that they wanted a high—profile name in what in religion is rather a low profilejob, usually, and the process was designed to help martin bashir get thatjob. are you surprised that none of the bbc executives in the interview panel checked on the controversies in bashir�*s career more thoroughly before hiring him?

yes, i think your word, suprised, is about right. i think if you had googled martin basheer in 2016 you would find plenty of things to worry you from the original suspicions about the panorama interview to the babes in the wood case to the comments he made while he was in america and also the bbc had on file somewhere a very strong letter for my former colleague peter horrocks about his behaviour at itv in i think about 1999—2000 so there was plenty to worry the bbc and the appointment should not have been made. i agree with tim davie, it was a big mistake. the only defence is the full horror of what he did around the time of the diana interview was only uncovered by lord dyson so it is true that we did not know the full scale ofjust how awful his behaviour had been 25 years ago. of course, another former itn executive has pointed out that there was a report by tim garden which wasn't

given to lord dyson, tim garden gave it to him himself. again, questions about how much they bbc did have back in 1996 having said, the whole thing was a scandal, which it was, the reappointment shouldn't have happened. i do think that there is some defence that people should have in 2016 about not knowing all the detail and also that some of these documents and some of these controversies were seen as being in the deep and distant past, so there are some defences but the bbc does not come out of this well at all and i think all of us who work there are deeply embarrassed by this terrible episode. you talked about hiding. you know, martin bashir was the only external candidate interviewed for that religious affairs job and there was much talk of a cappuccino culture of informaljob discussions with favoured candidates. do you recognise that? i do recognise that and i think sometimes you do see a particular member of the talent community

who you want to bring to the bbc so, as director of sport, i brought gabby logan to the bbc and we didn't at that point even have an appointments process. we decided she was a really key star talent we wanted to work in the bbc. so i think it is better to at least try to be transparent about what you are doing that in this case it is pretty clear to me that they did want martin bashir for thejob. i have been in positions in the past where you do have a strong preference for a particular candidate. the problem here was first of the process was deeply flawed and secondly they appointed someone who should never have been appointed. a lot of bbcjournalists themselves are really angry about this, roger, and about what this investigation has revealed. how damaging you think it was not been to trust in the bbc? it is very damaging indeed and trust as a foundation of the bbc so the whole story about how the greatest scoop of the late 20th century was flawed and obtained

by lies and deceit is a terrible one and then you have this unfortunate thing that happens sometimes at the bbc where a scandal that you would think was a long time ago then also comes back with a vengeance and it was a big, big mistake, exactly as has been said to appoint bashir in 2016. it brings it all back to life again and it was a terrible, terrible episode. newsnight�*s political editor nick watt is most often seen in the studio, or in the lobby of the houses of parliament. but on monday, he was outside downing street, when he was harangued and chased by a group of people protesting against lockdown measures, who shouted "traitor" at him and accused him of "lying" about lockdowns being legal. footage of the incident, filmed by the protesters, was widely circulated on social media, and a man has now been charged under the public order act. trudi coyne was among many who condemned the scenes, writing... this is absolutely disgraceful behaviour. nick watt comes across as such

a fair and decentjournalist." those sentiments were echoed by politicians including the prime minister and the home secretary, and journalists including gb news�* andrew neil. the bbc said in a statement... this behaviour is completely unacceptable. alljournalists should be able to carry out their work without intimidation or impediment." nick watt was back in the newsnight studio on wednedsay evening, where he repeated the expletive used by the prime minister about health secretary matt hancock, in a text revealed by boris johnson's former chief adviser dominic cummings. earlier, on the news at six — at a time when children were more likely to have been watching — laura kuenssberg was less explicit. in those crucial days at the start of the emergency, the adviser apparently messaged the prime minister, accusing the health secretary are failing to ramp up testing. the prime minister appears to have replied in expletive filled terms, totally hopeless. later, he raised concerns about ventilators and officials admitted they had been turning

them down because of price mark—ups. borisjohnson seems to have replied it is hancock, he is hopeless. ian fraser thought the actual expressions used in those texts should have had a wider airing, and though we're not going to quote them ourselves — as he did on this tweet — here's the rest of what he had to say... most media too coy to repeat boris johnson's actual words. but without telling us the words he used to describe matt hancock the story loses meaning. the bbc even blanks out the expletive on its screen—grab. meanwhile, shirley from torquay thought we were hearing too much about the dispute between dominic cummings and matt hancock... "why are we wasting bbc news time on a tit for tat feud between two grown—up men?" thanks for all your comments this week. if you want to share any opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news on tv, radio, online and social media, e—mail newswatch@bbc.co.uk, or you can find us on twitter @newswatchbbc. you can call us on 0370 010

6676, and do have a look at our website, bbc.co.uk/newswatch. that's all from us. we'll be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. hello there. friday brought us two very different days of weather depending on where you were across the uk. for some, beautiful sunshine — that was the scene for a weather watcher in orkney, compare that with this picture from oxford, where the rain was teeming down. some parts of southern england saw over a month's worth of rain injust 2a hours. you can see that wet weather on the earlier radar picture. but it did begin to clear off to the east through the latter part of the day, the area of low pressure responsible sliding away eastwards,

and that leaves us between weather systems for saturday. so the contrasts in the weather system will be less dramatic. some places will be a little cloudier than others. some will see some showers, but generally speaking, there's quite a lot of dry weather on the way. we will see some spells of sunshine developing, some showers breaking out particularly across parts of scotland through the day, some of those could be heavy and some creeping up across the channel islands and into southern counties of england later on. temperatures perhaps at their highest around parts of wales and north—west england getting up to 21 or 22 degrees. as we head through saturday night, we are going to see some of those showers pushing up from the south. some longer spells of rain in places. northern ireland and scotland staying largely dry through the night with some clear spells and temperatures generally between 8 and 1a degrees. so for sunday, it is quite a complicated weather setup. low pressure to the south—west, this frontal system will bring some early rain across some eastern and north—eastern parts and a few showers elsewhere. so, the detailfor sunday probably will change between now and then. but we are going to see quite

a lot of cloud spilling up from the south with some showers or longer spells of rain. some sunny spells too across parts of northern ireland, southern scotland, perhaps the north of england. but even here, we could see some showers breaking out. and temperatures will depend on how much sunshine you get, but generally between 13 and 20 degrees. let's have a look at the start of next week. because as we head into monday, this weather front here is likely to become quite slow moving across southern parts of the uk. so that means there will be some outbreaks of rain here. with the wind starting to come down from the north, we are going to tap into some rather cool air for the time of year. monday is the summer solstice. it is not going to feel much like summer — cool for all, wet down towards the south. stays unsettled and quite cool into tuesday.

this is bbc news. our top stories: some of the first results are expected within hours as voters in iran choose a successor to president hassan rouhani. catholic bishops in the us face clashing withjoe biden after moving to deny holy communion to politicians — like the us president — who support abortion rights. more trouble at the golden globes as two members of the body that organise the awards quit, calling the organisation toxic. the woman who punched a crocodile on the nose to save her twin sister tells us how she fought off the deadly reptile. and — one of the most anticipated matches of euro 2020 so far ends in a goalless draw as england face scotland at wembley stadium