BBC apologises to PinkNews founders and pays damages over false allegations
Nearly two years after its December 2024 documentary, the BBC has retracted its claims about Benjamin Cohen and Anthony James and agreed to pay substantial damages.
The BBC has retracted the allegations it broadcast about PinkNews founder Benjamin Cohen and his husband Anthony James, apologised unreservedly and agreed to pay them substantial damages.
The settlement was confirmed at the High Court in London on Thursday 8 October 2026, almost two years after the claims were first aired. The BBC did not contest the defamation case, which Cohen and James filed in 2025, meaning it will now not go to trial.
On 10 December 2024, the BBC broadcast the online documentary PinkNews: Behind Closed Doors and published an accompanying news article. The broadcaster said its reporting was based on interviews with dozens of current and former staff and on internal company communications.
The programme accused the couple of sexual misconduct towards young male employees at company events, of fostering a toxic working culture, and of pressuring female staff to act as surrogates for them. Cohen and James denied every allegation from the start. Both the documentary and the article have now been removed from the BBC website.
At Thursday's hearing, the couple's legal team told the judge the allegations had been false and extremely harmful to their reputations, and had been repeated widely by other national media outlets and on social media. The BBC's barrister accepted everything that was said and told the court the broadcaster "retracts and apologises unreservedly" for the claims.
Afterwards, the BBC issued a brief statement confirming that a settlement had been reached and saying it would make no further comment.
The allegations spread quickly over the New Year period in 2025 and drew comment from Downing Street. Cohen resigned as a trustee of a global disability charity. James, who is a GP as well as PinkNews's chief operating officer, stepped down from the board of an NHS foundation trust.
The couple's son, born through surrogacy, was around six months old at the time, and they say they also faced additional investigations by social workers.
Cohen and James are donating the damages to the Multiple Sclerosis Society and Bedfordshire Hospitals Charity. In a joint statement, they said the BBC had ignored warnings about the allegations, and argued that the corporation now owes licence fee payers an explanation of how such a failure happened. They added that the apology means the truth will be on record when their son is old enough to search for it.
PinkNews, which Cohen founded in 2005, is one of the UK's largest LGBTQ+ news publishers.
