Complaint
The programme included a sequence featuring a Sicilian village where parts of The Godfather had been filmed, in which a café-owner who said she had played the flower girl in a wedding scene was briefly interviewed.  The complainant disputed her claim, on the basis that the flower girl had in fact been played by his mother. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
In the ECU’s view the programme team’s research had satisfied the requirements of due diligence appropriate to programmes of this kind, and the evidence presented by the complainant, while persuasive in some respects, was not conclusive. Further enquiries, including contact with the office of the local mayor, yielded nothing to suggest the programme-makers should have interrogated the café-owner’s claim. In the light of these points, and while acknowledging the significance of the matter to the complainant, the ECU concluded there had been no breach of the standard of due accuracy applicable to an entertainment programme addressed to a UK audience.
Not upheld