A BBC journalist who went undercover to expose failings in care for the elderly has been arrested. Arifa Farooq was detained on Wednesday and held in a police cell in the wake of a Panorama investigation into care providers in South Lanarkshire, a BBC report said.
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It is believed her arrest is related to an alleged failure to provide accurate personal details to the employer. The programme, Britain's Homecare Scandal: A Panorama Special, centred on an in-depth investigation of domiciliary care, provided in Harrow, York and South Lanarkshire.
Ms Farooq, 30, went undercover as part of a two-month investigation to work for Domiciliary Care, which had won the South Lanarkshire contract by bidding £9.95 an hour in an online auction.The journalist, who works with the BBC Scotland investigations unit, was arrested after voluntarily attending an interview at Maryhill police station in Glasgow.
It is understood police received a complaint about her securing employment with Clydebank-based Domiciliary Care using a false identity. Ms Farooq was said to have been held in a cell for about an hour, before being released.
The Panorama programme, broadcast in April, found carers employed by some companies on minimum wages, often with very little training and frequently frustrated by poor management. It also uncovered evidence of missed and curtailed visits and failure to keep proper care plans. The programme prompted the Scottish Parliament's Local Government committee to announce it was launching an investigation into the practice of online bidding auctions for homecare contracts.
National Union of Journalists (NUJ) General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: “We are strongly urging the authorities to use their common sense and rule out prosecution. The work undertaken by Arifa Farooq was clearly in the public interest and it is now in the public interest for the case to be dropped.
“The only people who would benefit from legal action in these circumstances are those who want to stop the kind of vital journalism that has been undertaken by Arifa. The BBC has a proud history of supporting investigative reporters and I am sure they will be standing firmly behind their journalist. The NUJ also pledges its support to a member who will be going through an appalling experience simply because she dared to expose wrongdoing.”
