The BBC has been found to have breached its editorial standards following the inclusion of a racial slur in its broadcast of this year’s BAFTA Film Awards.
In a ruling published by the broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit, the BBC said the word, shouted during the ceremony by Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson, was “highly offensive” and had “no editorial justification”. The Complaints Unit said the breach during the original transmission was unintentional.
The incident took place during the presentation of the first award of the night by actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo. Davidson, who has Tourette syndrome and was attending the ceremony in connection with a film about his life, shouted the slur from the audience.
The BAFTAs ceremony had been recorded with a delay before being shown on BBC One at 7pm in an edited version of the three-hour live event. The Complaints Unit found that the offensive language was not removed before transmission.
It also upheld concerns over the delayed removal of the same moment from the version made available on BBC iPlayer. According to the report, there was confusion within the team over whether the word was clearly audible, resulting in the programme remaining online for several hours before it was withdrawn for editing.
The Complaints Unit described this as a serious mistake, saying there could be no certainty that the slur would be inaudible to all viewers.
The report said the BBC’s chief content officer has since written to apologise to Michael B Jordan, Delroy Lindo and John Davidson.
The edited programme remained on iPlayer for more than 12 hours before being removed and replaced with a holding message telling viewers the episode would be available again soon.
