What a shambles! Under public pressure, the BBC has lost one of its star names and its best radio controller – and all without a semblance of a sensible process. For a week nobody at the BBC noticed how badly Andrew Sachs had been treated live on air; then, prompted by a single newspaper article, public outrage followed – and the corporation has been on the run ever since.

Mark Thompson, the Director-General, was away on holiday in Sicily and nobody else seemed to be available to take the lead. It was not until Tuesday that Tim Davie, the new head of radio, went on air – and then only briefly. Senior executives largely disappeared until Mr Thompson, back from his holiday, hit the airwaves yesterday. It is a weak organisation that seems unable to respond when the boss is not in the building.

Nor did the BBC Trust distinguish itself. The initial response to the Brand-Ross affair was “Let’s have a meeting next week”, as if it had learnt nothing from last year’s Celebrity Big Brother row, when Channel 4’s indecision allowed that crisis to spiral out of control.

Yet, in a dynamic 24-hour, internet-fuelled media environment, a week is not a luxury that the BBC, or any other organisation at the sharp end of a public outcry, has. The number of complaints was rising by the minute and the story was the subject of conversations up and down the country, conversations in which few people had a kind word for either Russell Brand or Jonathan Ross.

If there was a procedure, it was clearly lacking. Should not the BBC have a system of automatic suspensions and emergency action when the number of complaints passes 100, let alone 30,000? The trigger level ought to be confidential, but there was a case for a prompt suspension of Brand and Ross on the Monday.

That did not happen, and Sir Michael Lyons, the Chairman of the BBC Trust, did not have the courage publicly to overrule Mr Thompson and insist that the men were suspended. He seemed only too content to wait for a meeting and papers.

Meanwhile, the organisation that is actually responsible for regulating taste and decency on the BBC, Ofcom, was all but invisible. Ofcom will have been busy in private, but the problem with the present system, in which the BBC is part regulated by the Trust and part by Ofcom, is that the general public doesn’t understand it. The general assumption is that it is for the BBC chairman to sort out.

One day there will be an Ofcom ruling on the matter – when nobody can quite believe what it was we all got so excited about. But there appears to be no way for the regulator to cut short the process and tell the public that it is obvious that something has gone wrong, and that it is demanding suspensions pending further investigation.

It was only Wednesday morning’s bad headlines that seemed to prompt Sir Michael to insist on yesterday’s hastily arranged meeting. By then, any hope of a considered response was out of the window, because the BBC was on the run. If a senior BBC executive had personally apologised on the Monday, appearing live, and not via statement, then perhaps Lesley Douglas would still be in her job.

As it was, it is hardly surprising that she felt the need to resign, chased out of office by the mob.

Ten years ago, in the era of Chris Morris and The Word, 100 complaints was a lot. Now it is possible to fill out a complaint form on Ofcom’s website and make a complaint in seconds. Now it is possible to view and share offensive material that has been broadcast again and again on YouTube, so outrage can spread across the nation.

In such an environment, every hour matters. Adopting a low profile while waiting for the next scheduled meeting simply will not do. The BBC, of all organisations, should have appreciated that.

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