Presenter’s murder comments ‘offensive’

Liam Aitchison, 16, was found dead in a derelict building in the Steinish area of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in November.

His death was later raised during a newspaper review section on the Wright Stuff show.

He put on a Scottish accent and said “there’s been another murder”, copying a phrase from TV detective show Taggart, while talking about the teenager’s death with guest Charlie Baker in December last year.

His remarks prompted 2,358 complaints to Ofcom from viewers of the broadcast on December 6.

A statement issued on behalf of Liam’s family at the time said the comments were “very upsetting”, “insulting” and “insensitive”.

Wright later apologised on air, saying it had not been his intention to “belittle” the teenager’s death. He also wrote to Liam’s family to say sorry.

Ofcom found discussion of the teenager’s death had been handled in a “highly inappropriate manner” and in a “thoughtless fashion”. But it found that the matter had been “resolved” because Channel 5 took steps to mitigate the offence caused.

The watchdog said: “Our view was that all these comments were clearly capable of causing offence to viewers given the sensitivity surrounding the very recent murder of a 16-year-old teenager in an isolated Scottish community.

“Ofcom considered that the degree of offence that the comments caused was considerable. This was mainly because Matthew Wright responded to Charlie Baker’s introduction to the news story by making a joke that made light of the murder. .

“In doing so, he appeared to pay no regard to the unfortunate circumstances of this murder case.”