Roger Cook (journalist)
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Roger Cook (born 6 April 1943 in New Zealand) is an investigative journalist, reporter and broadcaster.
He was brought up in Australia, and began his career with the ABC as a reporter and newsreader on both radio and television. In 1968, he joined BBC Radio 4's The World At One, and subsequently worked on several BBC radio and television programmes, including PM, Nationwide, and Newsnight.
In 1971 he created and first presented the Radio 4 programme Checkpoint, which specialised in investigating and exposing criminals and con-men. One 1979 programme about notorious rock manager Don Arden proved to be a colourful encounter. 'When you fight the champion you go 15 rounds, you've got to be prepared to go the whole way,' Arden tells Cook: 'I'll take you with one hand strapped up my arse. You're not a man, you're a creep.' [1]
In 1985 he moved to Central and created The Cook Report. The show is best remembered for Cook's trademark confrontations with his targets, complete with his camera crew, in which he would often get verbally and physically abused. The Cook Report ran regularly until 1998, and occasional specials have followed since.
When Carlton Television screened the last series of The Cook Report, in one episode, shown on ITV on 13 May 1997, Roger Cook interviewed Asil Nadir, former Chairman of Polly Peck International. The interview formed part of Roger’s investigation into the Serious Fraud Office. The SFO had produced a witness at Nadir’s pre-trial hearings at the Old Bailey, who claimed that Nadir had offered the judge, Mr Justice Tucker, £3.5 million for the return of his passport. It forced the judge to halt proceedings. A Metropolitan Police investigation later found that the bribery allegation possessed no foundation in truth.
The production of the so-called witness and his purported evidence, a photocopied document, clearly altered with correction fluid, appeared very suspicious. The SFO produced him just as the judge had begun to discard their charges against Nadir. Of the original 66 indictments, the judge had thrown out 46 of them. It seemed plain that about to lose their case, the SFO had panicked by introducing such a dubious claim. Fearful that he was the victim of a conspiracy, the affair compelled Nadir to escape British jurisdiction and return to his home in Northern Cyprus where he maintains his innocence.
In his book, Dangerous Ground, Roger Cook reveals that he felt that the strategy of the SFO gave due credence to Nadir’s contention that he is innocent. Adding to his suspicions, Cook had also interviewed Nadir’s banking aide, Elizabeth Forsyth, after her release from jail. Mr Justice Tucker had sentenced her to serve 5-years in prison, yet upon appeal the Law Courts quashed her conviction and ruled that the judge had misdirected the jury to find her guilty.
In an episode never screened on British television, but authentically recorded in her online blook, entitled Naked Spygirl, Olivia Frank, a former member of The Cook Report team, presents a detailed account of the conclusion of Roger Cook’s investigation when two more members of The Cook Report team, Peter Salkeld and David Alford filmed a joint MI5/MI6 operation calculated to humiliate Nadir.
Roger Cook is Visiting Professor at the Centre for Broadcasting and Journalism at Nottingham Trent University.
[edit] Parodies
Roger Cook has been parodied by many comedians such as Benny Hill and Reeves and Mortimer. In the eighties his 'Checkpoint' series got its sitcom counterpart in BBC Radio 4's Delve Special, where investigative journalist David Lander, played by Stephen Fry, doorstepped many a villain. When Roger Cook's investigations moved to television, so did his parody, in Channel 4's This is David Lander, which was followed later by Tony Slattery taking over the central role in This is David Harper. Many of Lander and Harper's investigations were based on reports made by Cook, Panorama and World in Action [1]
A puppet version of Cook also appeared in the satirical series Spitting Image. In one such sketch he goes to the Heavenly Gates and confronts God as if He was a crooked estate agent who promised land to the Jews, only to offer the same land to the Arabs under the name of Allah.
An pornographic parody was shown on Television X, titled "Roger Cock".
