in favour of the plaintiff, where Bercow's comment was found to have been defamatory, she paid undisclosed damages to McAlpine. The decision to broadcast the Newsnight report without contacting its subject led to further criticism of the BBC, and the resignation of its Director-General, George Entwistle on 10 November. It was later announced that Entwistle's severance package was in excess of £1.3 million. Harriet Harman, Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, declared that Entwistle had been rewarded for 'failure'. July 2013: Executive payoffs The large severance payments given to departing BBC executives came to widespread media attention in 2013 when the National Audit Office conducted an investigation into BBC senior management pay. The practice had been going on for a number of years. Senior executives whose payments were criticised included: chief operating officer Caroline Thomson, who received a total of £680,400 on her departure in 2011; Deputy Director-General Mark Byford who also left the BBC in 2011, taking £949,000; CEO of BBC Worldwide John Smith who was paid a total of £1,031,000 in 2011 (he later returned £205,000); George Entwistle who left the Director-General job after only 54 days following the Savile crisis, and received a payment of £511,500; and Roly Keating, the head of BBC Archives, who received a £375,000 severance payment in 2012 (which he later repaid in full). Margaret Hodge, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, criticised the practice, calling it an "outrageous waste of licence fee payers' money." Following his appointment as Director General, Lord Hall introduced a £150,000 cap on severance payments. Mark Thompson stated to the PAC that the payments had been fully approved by the BBC Trust. November 2013: Generation War BBC plans to broadcast the German ZDF film Generation War upset certain British residents of Polish origin, as the film had already been accused of slandering the Polish anti-Nazi underground Armia Krajowa as anti-Semites, and of portraying false stereotypes of Poles and Germans during the period of occupation. In Germany, after ambassador Jerzy Marganski sent a letter of complaint to ZDF, the broadcaster provided corrective actions producing and broadcasting film 'Kampf ums Überleben'. August 2014: Coverage of Cliff Richard's property search On 14 August 2014, Sir Cliff Richard's apartment in Berkshire was searched by South Yorkshire Police in relation to an alleged historical sexual assault on a boy aged under 16. After police tipped off BBC journalist Dan