There’ll always be an England….

A BBC presenter who admitted wasting police time after claiming on air that he smothered his dying lover has been given a suspended prison sentence.  Ray Gosling, 71, of Nottingham, was charged over claims he made to BBC Breakfast’s Bill Turnbull in February.  He was initially arrested on suspicion of murder, but charged with wasting police time after the confession was determined to be false.  At Nottingham Magistrates’ Court, he was handed a 90-day suspended sentence.  Gosling’s claim was first made in a BBC Inside Out documentary about so-called mercy killings, broadcast on 15 February.

He said: “I killed someone once. He was a young chap, he’d been my lover and he got AIDS.  I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead.”  He was interviewed on the Breakfast programme the following day and asked about his claims and again confessed to the mercy killing.  He was charged with wasting police time after the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was enough evidence to “provide a realistic prospect of proving that Mr Gosling’s confession was false”.  A BBC spokesman said: “In the light of the plea given in court today, we regret that we broadcast a claim by Ray Gosling which has effectively been withdrawn by him.  Continue reading the main story at the BBC

Wasting police time? Seriously?