The death of Martin McGuinness, the IRA leader who later became Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, on 21 March was marked by long, largely sympathetic assessments in BBC broadcasts. Alistair Lexden condemned this bias in a letter published in The Daily Telegraph on 23 March.
SIR-- Martin McGuinness’s death produced long tributes on the BBC to his role as a peacemaker. There was no attempt to balance them with an account of his career as a terrorist.
The toll of death and destruction is recorded dispassionately in Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government by Liam Clarke and Kathryn Johnston, published in 2001. In 1972 nine innocent people were killed in the village of Claudy by one of his close associates. In 1985 he authorised the murder of a Catholic couple who were alleged to have informed on the 1RA; they left an orphaned daughter.
In 1998 the father of one of the youngest victims of the Omagh bombings asked him to make an appeal ask for information to be passed by the police; he rejected the call.
Worst of all, the BBC omitted all reference to his failure to utter a single word of regret or remorse. Without penitence there can be no forgiveness.
Lord Lexden
London SW1