A BBC program's decision to drop an investigation into sex abuse claims against one of its former program hosts doesn't appear to have been a cover-up, a report on the matter said, but there were major flaws in the move.

The head of the inquiry, Nick Pollard, said the decision by the show's editor to shelve the story late last year -- taken shortly before the BBC broadcast tribute shows devoted to the late Jimmy Savile -- was seriously flawed.

But he had even sterner words for senior BBC News managers, saying leadership "seemed to be in short supply" when revelations about Savile subsequently emerged in October of this year.

"The decision to drop the original investigation was flawed and the way it was taken was wrong, but I believe it was done in good faith. It was not done to protect the Savile tribute programmes or for any improper reason," said Pollard, a former head of Sky News.

"In my view, the most worrying aspect of the Jimmy Savile story for the BBC was not the decision to drop the story itself. It was the complete inability to deal with the events that followed."

The management system was "completely incapable" of dealing with the crisis, he said, and his report "shows that the level of chaos and confusion was even greater than was apparent at the time."

The evidence gathered by the Newsnight journalists last year should have been passed to police, Pollard said.

The then-Newsnight editor who shelved the story, Peter Rippon, "made a bad mistake in not examining the evidence properly," he added.

Pollard said e-mails he studied had also revealed there was "knowledge, not just rumour," within other parts of the BBC "about the unsavoury side of Savile's character" at the time the tribute shows were planned.

Allegations of sexual assault and rape against Savile, who was a household name in Britain for decades, were first aired by rival broadcaster ITV in October. A slew of other claims followed.

Police believe Savile, who died in October of last year at age 84, sexually abused hundreds of young women and girls in past decades, with some offenses committed on BBC premises.

Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, which oversees the BBC, said it accepted all the findings and recommendations of the report and would act on them.

The crisis claimed the scalp of BBC Director General George Entwistle, who resigned at the height of the furor over the BBC's handling of the Savile affair. It broke only weeks after he took the top role at the broadcaster.

Acting Director-General Tim Davie said that Stephen Mitchell, deputy director of news, had resigned Wednesday in light of the report. He will not be given a severance package.

While critical of BBC management, Pollard told a news conference there was no "fundamental undermining of the BBC's journalism."

He added that he believed an apparent drop in public trust in the broadcaster, revealed in a survey released Monday, would be short-lived.

The BBC Trust said it welcomed the report's finding that no "inappropriate managerial pressure" had been involved in the decision to shelve the Newsnight investigation.

"Nonetheless, it is clear that there were serious failings in editorial oversight and management control that now need to be met with concerted action by the BBC."

As an immediate response, Newsnight will be given a new editorial leadership team.

Changes will also be made in the way stories considered to be "high risk" are managed.