Evening Standard: How Chris Morris hoodwinks his victims

This time it was paedophile 'Trust-me trousers', last time it was a fake drug and a zoo animal in peril. But how does Chris Morris manage to hoodwink celebrities and politicians into talking such nonsense on his show, Brass Eye? His victims talk to David Rowan

CHRIS Morris's investigations have performed a valuable public service. Before Brass Eye, few dared speak about the great scandal of modern society - the unfathomable gullibility of celebs when placed in front of a camera.

What magic vapours persuaded the DJ Neil Fox to tell Brass Eye that paedophiles and crabs shared the same genes? ('That is scientific fact. There is no real evidence for it, but it's scientific fact.') What mystical substances made Richard Blackwood explain that 'online paedophiles can actually make your keyboard release toxic vapours that make you more suggestible'?

We asked some of Morris's victims, past and present, how he persuaded them to perform on camera in his spoof specials:

Sir Bernard Ingham

Alongside Noel Edmonds, Bernard Manning and David Amess, Sir Bernard urged the nation's youth to say no to the drug 'cake' - a deadly pill, the size of afootball. 'The request came in a letter, asking if I would take part in a programme to persuade young people of the dangers of drugs. It was only when they came to film outside the Daily Express building that I began to wonder.

'I persevered with it, though, but had a feeling throughout my short interview that there was something very dodgy going on. When I got back to the office, I told colleagues there was something funny about it. The Daily Express tried to find out something about the programme, but every obstacle was put in its way. No calls were returned, and no one was at the address they'd given. I think it must have been a spoof address. We concluded that they were in the game of conning people - it was something nasty.

'I thought the programme-makers were a pretty amateur bunch, but obviously they weren't - that was all part of the act.'

David Amess, MP

The Tory was so enthusiastic in his support for publicising the dangers of 'cake' that he tabled an Early Day Motion on the peril. 'When you're an MP, the phone's going all the time. The approach from Brass Eye happened when Parliament was sitting. My office did check it out - I recall that there was a legitimate address on the letter, which turned out to belong to a dormant company. Because I'd been caught out before by a programme, I insisted that they'd have to come to the House of Commons to film.

'It was shortly after the death of Leah Betts, in my constituency, and it never occurred to me that anyone would try to trick their way into my confidence on such a very serious subject.

'I do not know the slang words for drugs - 'Cake' was the one the programme was about - and so when I tabled a parliamentary question about it, the civil servants answered it: because there was a drug called 'cake'. The people making the programme didn't realise this, so hadn't expected the question to be answered.

'Only when I saw it reported in the Evening Standard did I realise I'd been entirely duped. I complained to the Independent Television Commission (ITC), which ruled in my favour.'

Nick Owen

The broadcaster (not the ITN reporter of the same name, who was caught up in the recent paedophile special controversy) warned four years ago of the dangers of 'heavy electricity' falling on the Third World.

'People like me get swamped with invitations to help out with photo-shoots or charity fundraisers. If it helps, I usually say yes. Brass Eye sent me a letter from an address that seemed to make sense. It all seemed fairly authentic - people suffering in Sri Lanka, something to do with power surges. They approached me directly, and I rang the number to say I'd help with the appeal. I had no idea it was for a TV programme, I thought it was for some sort of video appeal to be played at a private corporate event. I only realised what had happened when I bumped into someone the day after the broadcast and they asked: 'What's all this about heavy electricity?' ' Was I misled? God, yes,very much so. It's made me question helping charities.'

Carla Lane

Joined Jilly Cooper and Britt Ekland to discuss the depressed elephant at London Zoo who had wedged its trunk up its own bottom. 'My experience was pretty awful. They wrote to me saying they were discussing very serious animal-welfare issues, and would I like to take part? Naturally, I went. But, as I waited to be called at the BBC in Wood Lane, I noticed I was on my own. Usually, you meet other people who are on a programme. I thought, 'That's strange'. I went to the studio, and they asked me the most foolish questions that were nothing to do with animal welfare.

'Then I remember the interviewer's moustache was moving slightly. I thought, 'Hang about', but I went on, as I'm a professional. The thing that really confused me was that I was in a BBC studio so I thought nothing could be allowed to go on there that wasn't above board.

'When I came out, I got a phone call from Lynsey de Paul (another guest), who was crying her eyes out. She'd realised what was happening to her, and had told them off in the middle. Until then, I hadn't thought it was a spoof. I just kept thinking, Carla, you're in the BBC. I rang the BBC later and found that their studio had been hired to make the programme. They had been duped too - they didn't know what I was talking about. Because I'm essentially broadminded, half of me was thinking 'That's the way things are now on TV, and you have to accept it'.

'I couldn't watch it, but my sister did and told me I came across as fairly intelligent, even though they were asking me to talk about an elephant that had its trunk stuck up its backside.'

Syd Rapson, MP

The Labour MP expressed his concern in last week's programme about 'trust-me trousers', designed to hide paedophiles' erections. He told Radio 4: 'I was approached to participate in a video which would be released to schools and young people to advise them on the dangers of the internet and its misuse by paedophiles.Three young men came along, very smartly dressed, and said they were doing it on behalf of Channel 4. I was completely taken in, they never mentioned Brass Eye - not that it w ould have meant anything to me.They were very courteous,very nice people.They show ed me internet footage. I couldn't believe some of the things they said.

'I refused to read aloud some of the scripts they gave me, because they just didn't make sense. But the ones I did get involved in, they show ed me the internet footage on their TV screen so that I would believe them.

'The worst thing was, in signing off the programme, we had to use gobbledygook language.They said that unless you used some of their terminology,young people w on't take it as credible. I was well and truly duped. I'm a bit embarrassed. I can live with that,but I'm annoyed at the w ay the deception was used.'

(Evening Standard, August 1 2001)