Chris Patten urged to quit BBC over George Entwistle's reported pay-off

Pressure mounted yesterday on Chris Patten, former Hong Kong governor and now chairman of the BBC's governing board, after two senior executives stepped aside - widening the fallout from errors in child-sex abuse investigations that forced the broadcaster's director general to quit.

News director Helen Boaden and her deputy Stephen Mitchell have given up their responsibilities, with an inquiry under way into why a BBC programme on sex-abuse claims against late entertainer Jimmy Savile was cancelled last year. The BBC insisted that Boaden and Mitchell had not been sacked and were expected back at their jobs.

George Entwistle, the director general, resigned at the weekend after a separate investigation erroneously implied that a senior politician had molested a young boy.

Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, said there must be a "thorough, structural, radical overhaul" of the way the public broadcaster was run, although he said he would not be resigning over the row. But calls for him to quit grew after it was reported that Entwistle would receive a £1.3-million (HK$16 million) pay-off. Entwistle will leave the BBC with a £450,000 lump sum plus a £877,000 pension plan, reported.

Conservative lawmaker Philip Davies was quoted as saying that it was "yet another reason" why Patten should step down.

Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman, Steve Field, said the pay-off for Entwistle, who led the BBC for just 54 days, was "hard to justify" but he added that it was for the BBC to justify the decision.