The documentary was supposed to put claims of Primark’s, cheap fast and ethical way of clothing production to the test.

Primark complained about the programme to the BBC Executive and then appealed to the Editorial Standards Committee of the BBC Trust. The question surrounding the appeal related to the authenticity of the footage. Primark also appealed against the way in which its complaint was handled by the ECU.

After carefully scrutinising the footage, the conclusion was that no one other than Dan McDougall (the journalist who obtained the Bangalore footage), K (the Indian driver/translator), and the Bangalore witnesses would ever know the truth of the circumstances under which the footage was shot. The committee stated that there was not enough conclusive evidence to suggest that the footage was or was not staged. But they did however say that it was more likely than not that the Bangalore footage was not authentic.

Here are the reasons for doubt

• The fact that the activity being carried out by the boys in the Bangalore footage did not appear to the Committee to be genuine;

• Looking at the delicate and intricate nature of the stitching on the sample of the brown vest top available to the Committee, it felt that the activity being carried out in the Bangalore footage, using large needles, would have been inappropriate for the activity being described by the programme;

• The distance between Pollachi, where the journalist had already filmed women working on the brown sequinned vest tops, and Bangalore made it improbable that he had found the same tops in these two locations on successive days; Panorama: Primark – On the Rack 4

• The fact that no brown vest tops other than the ones being worked on by the boys can be seen in the Bangalore footage, whereas it is likely that, if a quality control process was being undertaken, the workshop would have been handling a significant number of the garments;

• The contrast between the way in which other footage of children working on Primark garments had been filmed elsewhere and how they appeared in the Bangalore footage (e.g. the short sequence, the tight focus on the three boys with less focus on their surrounding environment);

• The inconsistencies in other evidence including the February/ March 2008 emails.

The Committee concluded that there was no evidence that the complaint was not handled in good faith by the ECU.

By Jennie May Thompson