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Now BBC hit by Clarkson joke on prostitute killings
BBC Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has sparked fresh BBC controversy by joking about murdering prostitutes.
The Top Gear presenter, 48, made the quip about lorry drivers killing sex workers on Sunday night's edition of the BBC2 show.
As he completed a lorry-driving task, he said: "This is a hard job and I'm not just saying that to win favour with lorry drivers, it's a hard job.
"Change gear, change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That's a lot of effort in a day."
His comments may offend relatives of the victims of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe killed 13 women, some of them prostitutes, between 1975 and 1980. During that period he worked as an HGV driver for a tyre firm and then for Bradford-based hauliers T & WH Clark.
And a campaigning women's group described his comments as "truly heartless". Speaking for All Women Count, Cari Mitchell said: "In the wake of the murders of five young women in Ipswich and the killing of over 60 prostitute women in the last 10 years, how did this remark, making light of the murder of prostitute women, come to be broadcast?
"Mr Clarkson should apologise immediately to prostitute women and our families, especially those of us bereaved by murder. He should also apologise for slandering lorry drivers."
Steve Wright was convicted in February of murdering five prostitutes in Ipswich. Wright was a former lorry driver, as well as pub landlord and forklift truck driver.
Clarkson's joke, made before the watershed, sparked 188 complaints to the BBC, out of what the corporation said was seven million viewers.
The Iceni Project, a charity which had helped some of the murdered prostitutes in Ipswich, criticised the remark. The group's director Brian Tobin said: "I just think it was highly distasteful and insensitive... I saw it on Top Gear. It made me cringe."
A spokesman for broadcasting watchdog Ofcom said it was assessing complaints against Top Gear.
A BBC spokeswoman said: "This particular reference was used to comically exaggerate and make ridiculous an unfair urban myth about the world of lorry driving, and was not intended to cause offence."
The remarks come after a prank carried out by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand on Brand's Radio 2 show led to the controller of the station, Lesley Douglas, resigning.
Yesterday the BBC was praised by its former chairman Michael Grade, now chief executive of ITV, for its handling of the Jonathan Ross scandal.
He said the incident showed that the BBC Trust's structure "works extremely well". He also called for broadcasters to allow less bad language on air.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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