BBC Pollard Review transcripts 'will disclose bitter recriminations' But publication is likely to be delayed until the middle of February while lawyers consider how many redactions to make. Some BBC staff suspect that several of the strongest criticisms will be cut out because they could be defamatory, it was claimed. The Pollard inquiry, which reported last month, criticised several senior executives over the mishandling of the Savile scandal. Mr Pollard received what he described as "10,000 relevant documents" from the BBC. While no one was dismissed, it was announced that Steve Mitchell, 63, the deputy director of news, would leave at a date to be agreed with corporation bosses this year ahead of a planned retirement. Jeremy Paxman, the presenter of Newsnight, the programme which investigated Savile but failed to broadcast the evidence it found of child abuse, is understood to have been particularly outspoken in his interview with Mr Pollard, it was reported. Among the 19 people interviewed over six-weeks include: George Entwistle, who was forced to resign as Director-General after only 54 days; Lord Patten; Mark Thompson, who was Director-General when the Newsnight investigation was dropped in December 2011; Helen Boaden, director of news; and Peter Rippon, the former Newsnight editor. A BBC Trust spokeswoman said today: "We have received the relevant documents from the Pollard team, and will publish these shortly. There has been a slight delay while they are prepared for publication. Lord Patten was interviewed and his evidence will be treated in the same way as the other transcripts. We will not be commenting further on the contents of this material ahead of publication.