Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, refused anti-Semitism training for the broadcaster, the Government’s adviser on anti-Jewish hatred has revealed.

Lord Mann, Sir Keir Starmer’s independent adviser on anti-Semitism, said he had visited BBC bosses to offer training on three occasions since taking up his role in 2019.

However, he said senior figures, including Mr Davie himself, turned down his repeated offers despite growing fears of an anti-Semitism problem at the BBC.

In a strongly worded condemnation of the broadcaster, Lord Mann accused it of failing to take seriously allegations of anti-Semitism and alleged anti-Israel bias in its reporting, saying there was an “arrogance at the top”.

He called for senior executives of the news corporation to be sacked for signing off on a controversial documentary.

Titled Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, it attempted to tell the story of children living in the Gaza Strip during the war between Israel and Hamas.

However, revelations that the narrator was the child of a Hamas government official in Gaza caused an uproar in February.

Hamas – which is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK – orchestrated and carried out the biggest atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust on October 7 2023.

An internal BBC review found “serious flaws” in the making of the documentary, which was pulled from iPlayer shortly after broadcast.