The BBC has formally upheld viewer complaints following the broadcast of a racial slur during the BAFTA Film Awards, with the corporation’s Editorial Complaints Unit ruling the incident breached its standards on harm and offence, though it found the breach was not intentional.
The incident occurred in February during the live ceremony. John Davidson, a Tourette’s campaigner, involuntarily shouted a racial slur while actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage presenting an award. The production team did not catch the word at the time, and it aired two hours later on BBC1. The full, unedited ceremony then remained available on iPlayer until the morning after the broadcast.
The BBC apologised and launched an internal investigation. On April 8, chief content officer Kate Phillips acknowledged the findings and said “this should not have made it to air, and it was a clear breach of our editorial standards.”
What the ECU found
The Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) concluded the broadcast of the slur was “highly offensive” and had “no editorial justification,” but stopped short of calling it deliberate. The ECU noted the production team had correctly identified and removed a subsequent use of the same word during the best supporting actress award, in line with protocols agreed before the event. The failure to catch the earlier instance was judged a genuine mistake.
The ECU did find that leaving the unedited recording on iPlayer overnight “aggravated the offence caused.” Phillips cited a lack of clarity within the team about whether the slur was audible in the recording, which delayed the decision to take it down.
Former BBC director general Tim Davie had previously explained that the team in the editing truck believed they had already removed the word, having caught and cut a later use of it during the same ceremony. Davidson has since said the BBC should have “worked harder to prevent anything that I said” from being broadcast, and questioned why he was seated near a microphone.
Free Palestine edit cleared
The ECU also examined edits to the acceptance speech of Akinola Davies Jr, director of My Father’s Shadow, from which the phrase “Free Palestine” was removed. Some argued the cut amounted to censorship. The ECU ruled it did not, finding the edits were made because of a pre-agreed arrangement to trim acceptance speeches for time, with no editorial motive behind the removal.
Changes the BBC has committed to
In response to the ECU’s findings, the BBC has outlined three commitments: strengthening pre-event planning at major live events with better risk assessment and clearer escalation routes; reviewing its production setup to ensure real-time monitoring of what goes to air; and recommunicating its iPlayer takedown policy so teams know when and how to pull content from the platform.
Phillips said the BBC must “learn from its mistakes” and acknowledged that the extended availability of the unedited broadcast made the harm worse.