BBC Radio 2 chief quits over prank calls

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - The head of BBC Radio 2 resigned and Jonathan Ross was suspended for 12 weeks on Thursday over prank phone calls made to actor Andrew Sachs on Britain's most popular radio station.

Lesley Douglas told BBC Director-General Mark Thompson that she took responsibility for the furore over messages left by Ross and Russell Brand on the "Fawlty Towers" actor's answer phone.

Pressure has mounted on the BBC to act all week after the calls drew 30,000 complaints, criticism from Prime Minister Gordon Brown and newspaper condemnation of the corporation's handling of the episode.

Douglas, who was appointed controller of the music and chat station in 2003, said the decision to quit was hers alone.

"It is a matter of the greatest possible sadness to me that a programme on my network has been the cause of such a controversy," she wrote in a letter to Thompson that was released by the BBC.

Thompson said he had accepted her resignation "with real sadness" after holding talks with the editorial standards board of the BBC Trust, the corporation's governing body.

Ross, 47, one of the BBC's best known and highest paid presenters, kept his job, despite what Thompson described as his "utterly unacceptable" behaviour.

"A 12-week suspension is an exceptional step, but I believe it is a proportionate response to Jonathan's role in this unhappy affair," Thompson said in a statement.