Speaking exclusively to the Guernsey Press, where she began her journalism career 26 years ago, Anna Brees explained how she was hounded by the media in the weeks after the BBC fired Mills in late March, following an allegation of historic sexual misconduct.
But her involvement in the story can be traced back to last year, when the 49-year-old freelance journalist and media trainer, whose career has included roles at the BBC and ITV, was innocently waving her daughter off on a school trip where she now lives in Penarth, South Wales.
‘We were waiting for ages for the coach to leave and a dad started talking to me,’ she said.
‘He knew I had worked at the BBC and he told me some info about Scott Mills. I passed that on to the BBC and they didn’t get back to me. That was the story really.
‘I contacted the BBC press team about Mills and another BBC staff member.
‘I didn’t get a reply.’
It has since been made public that Mills had been involved in a 2016 police investigation into sexual offences against a teenage boy, but the case was later dropped due to lack of evidence.
Although the BBC was made aware of the investigation at the time, it is believed that current management only found out earlier this year that the alleged victim was under 16, prompting them to take action.
The information which Ms Brees passed on to the BBC in May 2025 was unrelated but included details of allegations of ‘inappropriate communications’.
The BBC has now publicly apologised for failing to act on that information, releasing a statement in April admitting that ‘this should have been followed up and we should have asked further questions’.
Ms Brees said she had since heard from the BBC’s whistleblowing unit, who had been ‘incredibly helpful’.
‘I believe new management has been put in place since Tim Davie and Deborah Turness stepped down last November. Gordon Rayner, associate editor of the Telegraph, had a big part to play in that – Gordon and I know each other really well now. I have given him quite a few stories.’
She said it was ‘weird’ to have been named in so many national stories after it first came to light that she had provided the BBC with information about Mills almost a year before any action was taken.
‘Literally every media channel in the UK, papers and TV, contacted me for an interview. I was a bit puzzled to be honest, as I didn’t think it was that big a deal.’
She did not feel she had anything meaningful to add to the story itself and chose not to pursue media interviews around it. Her focus is the wider issue of public trust.
‘We need to trust something, and if we don’t trust the BBC, I’m actually worried about that,’ she said.
‘I have children. I remember what happened during Covid. If something like that happens again we need a BBC that people trust or there would be utter chaos.
‘If the BBC are seen to be covering things up it means on the bigger important issues we won’t trust them.’
Latest reports suggest that Mills is planning on lodging a case of unfair dismissal against the BBC.
While Ms Brees is critical of the BBC’s handling of scandals in the past, she believes things have improved in recent years.
‘I think the BBC thought it could go away quietly in the past, that if the TV, newspapers and radio didn’t cover it, no one would know about it. But we have social media now, the story gets out on there.
‘So it is quite simple really – if a big name does something wrong and you have the evidence, you have to let them go. And you have to do it quickly.
‘And if you make mistakes, and all organisations do, own up to it, say sorry and move on. It is important, though, to say “sorry, we made a mistake”, or “as soon as we were made aware of this, we dealt with it”.
‘Anything else just insults the public’s intelligence.’
She is particularly disparaging of the BBC’s reporting around the Covid crisis, which she descibed as ‘dreadful’.
But she believes the new director-general and the new team heading up the whistleblowing unit are making a difference.
‘I have seen the BBC change in the last three years, and I welcome it,’ she said.
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