· Experienced producer killed in lawless capital
· Family's concerns over reasons for trip

Sandra Laville

London, UK, September 30, 2006 – A coroner investigating the death of a BBC producer in Somalia has ordered the corporation to account for the risk assessments it made before sending her, and the protection provided in one of the most dangerous war zones in the world.

An inquest is to be heard this autumn and Peter Dean, the Bury St Edmonds coroner, has asked the BBC for a detailed report concerning the risk assessments, and the risk management in place during her trip. The demand has come in response to safety concerns raised by the family of Kate Peyton, 39, who died after gunmen shot her in the back outside her hotel in the lawless Somalian capital of Mogadishu, a few hours after she had arrived in February last year.

Ms Peyton had flown to Somalia with a reporter Peter Greste to make a series of reports. Witnesses said a gunman approached her at the gate of the Sahafi hotel, fired one bullet and then sped off in a car with other passengers.

Ms Peyton, who was based in Johannesburg, had covered Africa for 10 years and was one of the BBC's most experienced and respected foreign affairs producers. Born in Beyton, Suffolk, she lived in Johannesburg with her partner, a Congolese cameraman, and was about to adopt his eight-year-old daughter.

Ms Peyton's relatives want to know whether pressure was exerted on her to go to Somalia, a country which is riven by violent militia, at a time when tensions were heightened with the imminent arrival of Abdillahi Yusuf Ahmed, who had been appointed as interim president the year before and was waiting in Kenya until it was safe enough to return.

According to family friends, staff at the Somali service of the BBC had no idea Ms Peyton was arriving.

"The family still doesn't know where the BBC gets their information from," said a friend, who asked not to be named. "The head of the Somali service of the BBC had not been informed she was going. No one had contacted him, and the service has a very experienced resource of people in the country which could have been used. They understand that the head of the Somali service was actually very annoyed. There is a feeling in the family that the risk assessment was ad hoc."

The BBC takes risk assessment seriously. And the danger to journalists and aid workers in the country was well known. Fifteen journalists were killed in Somalia when civil war raged in the 1990s and most international aid agencies have pulled out of Mogadishu because of security concerns. Citizens are used to regular gun battles and kidnappings on the streets which continue in the aftermath of 14 years of civil war.

Ms Peyton was in the country to report on the preparations being made by the incoming government, which was based in Kenya, for its return. Her body was repatriated to the UK and a funeral took place in March last year. Her death came less than a year after the BBC reporter Frank Gardner was seriously injured and his cameraman, Simon Cumbers, was killed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Ms Peyton's family believes her trip was mishandled. They have spoken to relatives of other BBC staff and freelancers killed or injured while on assignment. But the family does not want to make any comment until after the hearing.

A spokeswoman for the BBC said: "There is nothing out of the ordinary about this. We gave evidence about our safety procedures in the Simon Cumbers inquest and we have done in the past." She declined to comment on whether a coroner had asked for a full written report before.

The International Federation of Journalists welcomed the transparency that the inquest would shed on the preparations made by media employers before sending staff into dangerous situations.

"If employers are not preparing and training their reporters, their cameramen, their producers before they are sent into dangerous situations then they are reneging on their responsibilities."

Back-story

Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, when the dictator Mohammed Siyad Barre was overthrown. Barre seized control in a military coup in 1969, nine years after independence from Italy. After Barre's downfall civil war erupted. An American-led UN force intervened in 1992 but the American troops departed after the killing of 18 rangers during an attempt to arrest the warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed. A transitional government set up in 2004, headed by Abdillahi Yusuf, a former army officer, exerts little power outside its base in Baidoa.

Source: The Guardian

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