Ofcom justice: fine the victims

So Ofcom has fined the BBC £400,000 for multiple fiddles of its various fake phone-in competitions. That would make sense if Director-General Mark Thompson and his bloated boss class at the Beeb had to pay the fine from their over-paid salaries. Or if Ofcom had instructed them to hand over the incredible and unjustified bonuses they’ve just paid themselves (which would come to a lot more than £400,000). Or if those directly responsible for the malpractices were forced to cough up from their own pockets. But none of that is going to happen. Instead, it’s the poor bloody licence-payer who’ll have to stump up.

But hold on! Wasn’t it the licence-payer who was on the receiving end of all the BBC’s sleights of hand in the first place? Surely it was the viewers who were cheated. Yet Ofcom’s solution is to fine the victims! Even by the warped standards of Britain’s current ideas of justice and pathetic treatment of victims, this must be a first.