The BBC breached its editorial standards by broadcasting a racial slur during the Bafta film awards ceremony in February, the corporation’s Executive Complaints Unit has found.
The incident occurred during the ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall, when Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson shouted the slur from the audience as Sinners actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan presented the award for special visual effects.
The BBC's chief content officer Kate Phillips said the ECU "found this should not have made it to air and it was a clear breach of our editorial standards".
The ECU said the inclusion of the slur “was highly offensive, had no editorial justification and represented a breach of the BBC's editorial standards, but that the breach was unintentional”.
Phillips added "the production team did not hear” the slur when it was said and “therefore no decision was taken to leave the word within the broadcast".
"The ECU accepted this was a genuine mistake, especially as the team did correctly identify and edit out a subsequent use of the same word, in line with the protocols that were agreed in advance of the event regarding offensive and unacceptable language,” Phillips continued.
But the ECU added that leaving the coverage on iPlayer until the Monday morning was a "serious mistake", with Phillips adding “there was a lack of clarity among the team present at the event as to whether the word was audible on the recording”.
According to the report, Phillips has since sent letters of apology to Delroy Lindo, Michael B Jordan and John Davidson.
During the broadcast, the ceremony’s presenter Alan Cumming apologised for the language viewers may have heard.
A BBC spokesperson later said: “Some viewers may have heard strong and offensive language during the Bafta Film Awards.
“This arose from involuntary verbal tics associated with Tourette syndrome, and as explained during the ceremony it was not intentional.
“We apologise that this was not edited out prior to broadcast and it will now be removed from the version on BBC iPlayer.”
The controversy surrounding the Tourette syndrome campaigner’s outbursts then intensified after a number of high-profile figures publicly criticised the handling of the incident.
Actor Jamie Foxx responded to footage of the moment on social media, writing: “Unacceptable” and “Nah he meant that s**t”.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy also spoke to then-BBC boss Tim Davie over the “completely unacceptable and harmful" broadcasting of the slur.
