SBS stand by their Dateline man

SBS employee Leigh Bancroft sent us the following response to our concerns about their presentation of a 'dossier' mentioning Dr Haneef:

"Thank you for your email regarding Dateline’s report last week on the Indian police dossier on Mohammed Haneef.

The document was printed from the computer of a leading Bangalore police officer, who told David O’Shea that the dossier was for O’Shea’s “background” on the police inquiry into Dr Haneef’s activities. Mr O’Shea approached Bangalore’s Police Commissioner for comment, but was refused an interview. Approaches were also made to India’s Justice Minister and Attorney-General, and to Dr Haneef and his family, but Dateline was told that no interviews would be given.

Dateline agrees that further exploration of the document would have been ideal. However, the program believed that, as the document came from a legitimate and highly-placed police source, it was appropriate for it to be brought to the attention of the public with a response from Dr. Haneef’s lawer.

The program’s ‘fleshing out’ of details of the document with David O’Shea in the form of an interview with George Negus was intended to provide additional detail on how the dossier was obtained, of what interpretations could be drawn from it.

Dateline thanks you for taking the time to write with your views on this matter."

Hmmm. We still think that in a matter of such gravity a bit more bloody caution wouldn't have gone astray. Somehow we think they would have been explaining themselves to quite a few people after that one...