Carlton Television was fined an unprecedented £2 million sterling by the television watchdog yesterday for a faked documentary.
The fine imposed by the Independent Television Commission came the day after the last Carlton staff member involved with the drugs documentary, The Connection, announced his resignation.
In a highly critical report, the ITC said the documentary involved "a wholesale breach of trust between programme-makers and viewers" and confirmed it had seriously considered curtailing the Central broadcasting licence - the television region which produced the programme - after the documentary had breached the programme code on 10 occasions. The ITC went on to say it would have "no hesitation" in ending the licence for "similarly serious" breaches of the programme code in the future.
In The Connection, which was broadcast in October 1996, the programme-makers claimed they had exposed a new drug-smuggling route between Colombia and Britain. They highlighted a "drug's mule" plane journey which they said was a continuous link, but was filmed on two separate occasions six months apart. In one sequence, "drugs runners" were later discovered to have been actors and the heroin they were shown smuggling was sweets. The Guardian exposed the documentary as a fake after an investigation earlier this year.
According to the ITC chairman, Sir Robin Biggam, much of what was offered as evidence to substantiate the drug-running route was "fake" and, despite ambitious claims, "little was what it seemed" in the programme.
The £2 million penalty is four times the amount of the only previous fine, against ITV's This Morning programme for giving products undue prominence.