Top Gear rapped by Ofcom over fake suicide
BBC2's Top Gear censured by Ofcom for showing fake suicide of man who bought allegedly slow car
Monday, 09, Nov 2009 02:42
By Matthew Champion.
BBC2's Top Gear has been censured by the broadcasting watchdog for showing a man shooting himself in the head and lying in a pool of blood before the 21:00 watershed.
Ofcom said there was no editorial justification for the clip, which showed a man committing suicide because he had bought the 'slow' Volkswagen Sirocco.
Six or seven other suicide scenes were shown for the same reason in the episode originally broadcast in August including a man holding his severed arm in hospital.
The offending episode was first shown at 20:00 but the scene in question was removed from a repeat broadcast at 19:00. The BBC told Ofcom, in response to more than 50 complaints, that the scene showed a "ludicrous and obviously comic depiction of the suicide".
The BBC said it had been removed from the repeat because of a "sliding scale of bedtimes", not because of an "editorial misjudgement".
But Ofcom ruled the suicide scene was too graphic and "exceeded audience expectations".
"Its realistic depiction meant that the violent imagery was not appropriately limited," the watchdog added.