BBC Publishes, Then Deletes, Glow-Up Profile of Convicted Care-Home Thief
The BBC has quietly deleted a feature article that profiled Ben Howard, a man who stole from residents while managing a care home, after presenting him primarily as a victim.
Headlined “Being gay made it harder to get gambling support,” the article (now archived) on BBC Sussex leaned heavily into the claim that gay men may struggle to access help for gambling addiction. The piece focused on Howard, now working at the Brighton and Hove LGBT Switchboard, and framed his criminal behaviour through the lens of identity and marginalisation.
Readers were first treated to long passages explaining how difficult it can be for a gay man in Brighton to access support services. One example cited was being asked questions such as: “Do you have a wife? Do you have a girlfriend?” — apparently enough, we are told, to push someone toward stealing.
A gay man struggling to find support in Brighton. Who would have thought it?
Only after readers had been thoroughly buttered up with paragraphs about the barriers faced by the “LGBTQIA+ community” did the article arrive at the inconvenient facts.
In 2020 Howard was charged with fraud by abuse of position after admitting to stealing more than £250,000, including from residents. He was sentenced to three years and four months in prison in 2024, but was released after serving 10 months in June 2025.
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The great X account ripx4nutmeg pushed the crazyness of the piece to its followers injecting it directly into the public psyche.
“This man stole £250,000+ from residents of the care home he was the manager of. This is the headline and intro BBC News uses for the story about what he did. (After spending 10 months in prison, he now works for a ‘migrant and trans inclusive community space’ in Brighton),” said ripx4nutmeg.
Backlash followed, and the broadcaster swiftly pulled the article.
“This post has been removed as it did not meet our editorial standards,” BBC Sussex said on X.
It is fair enough that Ben Howard is attempting to turn his life around. What is not acceptable is the BBC explicitly presenting him as the victim, on the grounds that “gay men might find it difficult to access gambling addiction support.”