The broadcaster aired these outragegeous claims about Farage, linking him to the death of a Polish man shortly after the Brexit vote.
Arkadiusz Jozwik, 40, was murdered by a British teenager in a shopping centre in Harlow, Essex. He died two days later from his head injuries. Radek Jozwik, the victim’s brother said he believes he was attacked because he was heard speaking Polish.
Mainstream media reports claimed that the attack was racially motivated because the Pole had made racial remarks. The teen’s legal representative said: “They made racist remarks to the youngsters, then invited violence from them, and they were considerably bigger and stronger than the young people.”
But the police told EssexLive that the teenager had attacked the Pole for no reason. “Essex Police, working in conjunction with the Crown Prosecution Service, has carried out a huge amount of work into trying to establish the course of events that led to Mr Jozwik’s death and to find the truth of what happened.
“My team has taken more than 150 witness statements, spoken to more than 300 people during inquiries and reviewed more than 100 hours of CCTV footage. More than 30 police officers and staff have been involved in the investigation and committed more than 1 200 additional hours.
“Whatever the reason for the events of that night, the defendant deliberately used violence against Mr Jozwik.”
The court also heard the defendant had two previous convictions, one for possessing half a knuckle duster and the other for threatening behaviour, and was actually on bail for a similar offence at the time of the attack.
Farage said yesterday that he lived “in fear of reprisals” because of the BBC’s fake news coverage and that he lived in a “perpetual state of fear”.
Writing in the Telegraph, he said it has “caused my family and me more misery than any other in my 25 years in politics” and had “opened the floodgates” to other reports linking him to Jowzik’s death.
The former UKIP leader has written to BBC director general Tony Hall demanding an apology. “I have written to him asking for an official apology for a terrible slur that was cast upon me, which I believe was encouraged by one of the Corporation’s senior reporters, John Sweeney, and then aired to the nation,” he said.
“If the apology is not forthcoming, I will have no option but to stop paying the BBC licence fee altogether… This is a test of whether the BBC really is the decent and fair public broadcaster it purports to be.”
The BBC defended its report, insisting that its coverage was “fairly reported”. The BBC report at the time stated: “Nigel Farage, I mean, thank you for that, because you are part of this death, and you’ve got blood on your hands, thanks to you, thanks for all your decisions, wherever you are.”
During the trial, the court also heard that the crime had nothing to do with the Brexit vote. Nigel Farage hand-delivered his complaint to BBC.
Farage accused the BBC of “deliberately stirring up division and hatred in this country” because “no other news organisation approached that tragic death in the street and painted it out initially to be the fault of Brexit and Nigel Farage.
“The whole thing is an absolute complete and total disgrace and the BBC need to start proving to people that actually they will be an impartial sensible broadcaster,” he said.