The BBC spent £9.1m on external legal advice during the last financial year, a freedom of information request has revealed.

According to The Sun, the higher legal bill for 2012/13 came on the back of the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal and is in addition to the annual £4.2m the corporation spends on its team of 58 in-house lawyers.

The BBC said the legal bill was only partly as a result of the investigations into Savile, emphasising that the costs come from "across all divisions in the BBC".