IT has taken a full 12 months, but the BBC Trust has finally issued a damning judgment on the way in which star Newsnight interrogator Jeremy Paxman dealt with former Chief Minister Frank Walker during an interview about Haut de la Garenne and the associated child abuse inquiry.

During the interview, conducted remotely as Mr Walker, then a Senator, stood outside the former home, Mr Paxman managed to paint a picture of a senior politician more concerned with the Island’s international reputation than with anything that might have happened to abused children.

The BBC Trust report concludes, without hedging or any ambiguity, that this impression was conveyed through distortion and other tactics which misled the Newsnight audience. In particular, it notes that, wilfully or otherwise, Mr Paxman twice attributed comments to Mr Walker that he never uttered.

Although Mr Paxman is among the BBC’s top presenters, interviewers and anchormen in terms of the responsibilities entrusted to him, it must be said that his handling of the Walker interview broke rules that are well known and well understood by even the most junior journalists. His lack of balance and accuracy allows only two interpretations – that he was, on that occasion, guilty of staggering incompetence or that he deliberately ignored proper practice to squeeze maximum sensation from the broadcast.

Mr Walker is, naturally, delighted that he has been vindicated by the trust report. However, the scars of the late-night encounter with the grand inquisitor will no doubt take a long time to heal. Indeed, Mr Walker has acknowledged that the interview and its aftermath still rank as the low point of his political career.

Meanwhile, although the report and its findings will be welcomed by all those with anything approaching a sense of fair play, the BBC’s reception of its findings falls short of true contrition and the acceptance that a massive error was made. There will, apparently, be no apology on air, though the most fulsome apology is clearly in order.

It is also unfortunate that, as in the case of the Haut de la Garenne investigation as a whole, those eager to think the worst of Jersey will hold in their minds the myths, untruths and distortions that have been so much a part of international media coverage instead of the far less sensational picture that is now steadily emerging.