Daily Telegraph reports Top Gear star host has been found to have engaged in physical assault in BBC investigation led by Ken MacQuarrie

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

An investigation into the conduct of Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has concluded that the star engaged his producer in a 30-second physical assault after a 20-minute verbal tirade, according to reports.

The inquiry by a senior BBC executive would result in Clarkson, one of the the corporation’s most popular and controversial presenters, being sacked by the BBC on Wednesday, according to the Daily Telegraph.

But the BBC said no final decision had been made on Clarkson, who was suspended 15 days ago following a “fracas” with Top Gear producer, Oisin Tymon.

A BBC spokesman said: “No decision has been made. When we have an outcome, we will announce it.”

No decision has been made. When we have an outcome, we will announce it BBC spokesman

Clarkson was suspended by the BBC earlier this month after an alleged dispute with Tymon at a north Yorkshire hotel after filming on location in Newcastle.

The presenter was said to have been unhappy after being offered a cold platter of food after filming rather than steak and chips, but other reports suggested it was a consequence of problems during the day’s shoot.

The Telegraph said the inquiry into the incident, led by BBC Scotland boss Ken MacQuarrie, had concluded that Clarkson did attack the producer, verbally abusing him for 20 minutes before launching a 30-second physical assault on him.

It said Tony Hall, the BBC’s director general, would announce its findings on Wednesday, signalling an end to Clarkson’s BBC career.

Clarkson himself telephoned Danny Cohen, the BBC’s director of television, following the incident three weeks ago at the Simonstone Hall hotel near Hawes in north Yorkshire.

At the time Cohen felt he had no option but to suspend the star and cancel the remaining episodes in the current run of Top Gear.



Once the investigation’s findings are implemented it is expected that the BBC will continue with Top Gear, one of BBC2’s most popular shows with more than five million viewers a week. It is also one of the BBC’s most valuable, popular with viewers around the world and generating about £50m a year for the corporation’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.



But it remains to be seen if Clarkson’s co-presenters, James May and Richard Hammond, would remain on the show without him. All three presenters’ contracts were due for renewal at the end of this month.

There would be no shortage of broadcasters keen to hire Clarkson, with ITV seen as the most likely destination in the UK, although the presenter could look to break the mould with a move to US video-on-demand service, Netflix.

Chris Evans has been tipped as a future Top Gear presenter but the Radio 2 breakfast DJ has previously ruled himself out of the running, declaring: “I can categorically say I am not and will never be running for office. Please discount my candidacy.”

Clarkson left his London flat in a taxi about 4.40pm on Tuesday and when asked if he had heard from the BBC today, he told reporters: “Nothing. Not a sausage.”

The presenter, alongside co-hosts James May and Richard Hammond, was scheduled to take part in four live Top Gear shows in Norway this week, but it was announced on Sunday they had been postponed. The final three remaining episodes of Top Gear were also pulled from BBC2.

Clarkson has described his week as “turbulent” and claimed he was joking when he criticised BBC bosses during an expletive-laden rant at a charity event last Thursday. “The BBC have fucked themselves,” he told the audience at the Roundhouse theatre in north London. “It was a great show and they fucked it up.”



The presenter tweeted his thanks to supporters of a million-strong online petition, delivered by tank to the BBC’s Broadcasting House in central London on Friday, but declared in his column in the Sun that “protest never works”.

He also found supporters in David Cameron, the prime minister, who described him as a “huge talent” and Boris Johnson, mayor of London, who said: “I’m instinctively pro-Clarkson, basically because he is one of those guys who somehow fuels lefty indignation, whatever he does. I have an automatic presumption of innocence in his case.”

Clarkson has been involved in a string of controversies in recent years, was given a final warning by the BBC last year after the 54-year-old appeared to mumble the N-word in a Top Gear out-take.



Cohen had sought to take disciplinary action against Clarkson over the N-word controversy last year but was overruled by Tony Hall.



No stranger to controversy, Clarkson and the Top Gear crew were forced to flee Argentina last year after they were pelted with stones by a crowd incensed that one of their vehicles had a number plate that appeared to refer to the Falklands conflict.



The incident sparked a diplomatic row, with the BBC later rejecting a demand by the Argentinian ambassador to apologise.

Also last year, Clarkson was accused of “casual racism” during a Top Gear special in which the team built a bridge over a Burmese river. As a man walked across the bridge Clarkson made a comment that there was a “slope on it”.



The programme has also prompted complaints from the Indian High Commission, which said it was full of “cheap jibes” and “tasteless humour”, and it was forced to apologise to the Mexican ambassador to the UK who complained about a Top Gear special in which Hammond described Mexicans as “lazy, feckless and flatulent”.

