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The BBC’s executive complaints unit (ECU) has ruled that the broadcast of a racial slur during the Bafta Film Awards violated the corporation’s editorial standards. The incident occurred in February when a Tourette syndrome campaigner inadvertently shouted the slur while actors Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting an award category. Despite the offence caused, the slur remained unedited in the TV broadcast which was aired on BBC One with a two-hour delay and was also available to stream on iPlayer until the following morning.
Kate Phillips, the BBC’s chief content officer, acknowledged the breach of editorial guidelines but emphasized that the incident was not deliberate. She explained that the production team had not heard the slur in real time, which meant no decision was made at the moment to censor it. Phillips further detailed that the team had correctly removed a later instance of the same word, in line with established protocols concerning offensive language. However, leaving the unedited footage accessible on iPlayer until the Monday after the event was labelled a “serious mistake” by the ECU, which compounded the severity of the offence.
The ECU’s report underscored that the inclusion of the racial slur had no editorial justification and was highly offensive. Phillips remarked that confusion about whether the word was audible on the recording caused a delay in removing the footage from iPlayer, increasing the impact of the error. She pledged that the BBC must learn from this mistake and improve its procedures for planning, live event production, and video removal processes to prevent a recurrence. Apologies were issued directly to the affected actors Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo, and Wunmi Mosaku, as well as to Tourette’s activist John Davidson, who was the individual responsible for the outburst.
The incident sparked a strong response from several figures, including director Kirk Jones, who said Davidson was “let down” by the way events were handled. Davidson expressed that the BBC should have tried harder to avoid broadcasting his utterance and questioned why he was seated close to a microphone during the ceremony. He had attended the event to support the film *I Swear*, which is based on his life story and won three Baftas. Additionally, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy described the broadcast as “completely unacceptable and harmful,” and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch condemned it as a “horrible mistake.” The Bafta host Alan Cumming also apologized for the “trauma-triggering” nature of the show.
Separately, the ECU reviewed complaints concerning the BBC’s editing out of the phrase “Free Palestine” from an acceptance speech. Director Akinola Davies Jr, while accepting the award for best debut for *My Father’s Shadow*, had made the statement during his speech. However, the broadcast version was shortened due to time constraints from over two and a half minutes of on-stage remarks to about one minute. The ECU accepted the BBC’s explanation, concluding that the edits were made for practical reasons related to fitting the ceremony into a two-hour transmission slot rather than impartiality considerations
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