BBC accused of gagging older women who are 'forced out' of their jobs Last week the head of BBC news Fran Unsworth conceded that the age discrimination case brought against the BBC Ms Miriam O'Reilly had helped to highlight the lack of older women in the corporation's services. Ms Oreilly read out testimony from four of six women she claimed had been "forced to take redundancy" after they reached their fifties. They signed confidentiality agreements as part of the pay-off, which means they can't speak publicly about the way they went," she told the House of Lords committee. In some ways this is what protects an organisation like the BBC. There's no comeback on them because these confidentiality clauses act as gags. Ms O'Reilly won an employment tribunal against the corporation when she was rejected for a role on a revamped prime-time version of Countryfile. I refused to sign (a confidentiality agreement) and that's why I'm always speaking out because I haven't been tied into one of those. These women were on top form. These women had all the time in the world to concentrate on the job and they really wanted to be able to do that and continue. Ms O'Reilly was given a deal to return to the corporation after winning her legal case but she left after one year to work on other projects including her charity, Women's Equality Network. She said: "I was not given the programmes that the BBC was contracted to give me. I was supposed to do a number of Radio 4 programmes. They didn't materialise. I wasn't given a pass, I wasn't given a computer log in. I was sidelined onto a religious programme on the World Service. Nicky Morgan the Education Secretary and Equalities minister said Broadcasters must now do more to recruit older women and keep them on our screens for as long as men. Nicky Morgan said that it was time that TV and radio stations realised that there was a "demand" from their audience to get more older women "on to our screens and in our radio studios." There is "no reason" she added, that current crop of "extremely talented older female broadcasters" can remain on screen "for as long as the men do." The BBC said in a statement: "We don't recognise the picture painted at the select committee. As we explained to the committee last week, nearly half of the BBC's news and current affairs workforce is female, with 37.3% in leadership positions in network news and 35.1per cent in global news and we have a large number of on-air and management positions filled by women in news. Meanwhile, the BBC has led the industry through our Expert Women training programme and we have a range of flexible working arrangements, as well as committing to a number of steps to improve things further. A BBC spokesman said: "When Miriam left the BBC she said she had had a rewarding time here."