The broadcaster’s executive complaints unit (ECU) said the inclusion of the slur shouted by a Tourette’s campaigner was “highly offensive” and “had no editorial justification”. However, investigators said the breach made during the initial broadcast was unintentional.
In response to further complaints that the slur should have been edited out of the programme available after the event on iPlayer, the ECU said there was “a lack of clarity among the team as to whether the word was audible”, which resulted in a delay of several hours.
This was “a serious mistake, because there could be no certainty that the word would be inaudible to all viewers”.
John Davidson, who suffers from the neurological condition Tourette’s and was at the ceremony in February to celebrate a film about his life, yelled out the slur as the first award of the night was presented by Sinners stars Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo.
The BBC’s chief content officer has sent letters of apology to Lindo, Jordan and Davidson since the incident, the ECU report said.
The BAFTAs programme was edited down from the three-hour live show filmed two hours earlier that evening, and went out on BBC1 at 7pm.
Viewers were able to see the offending moment on BBC iPlayer for more than 12 hours before the programme was pulled to be edited. After this, they saw the message: “This episode will be available soon.”
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