A former BBC employee has blown the whistle on cocaine use among the corporation’s TV and radio producers and star performers.

Sarah Graham told a Home Affairs Select Committee hearing into the cocaine trade, that it is seen as “part of your creative genius or part of your extraordinary personality”.

She says that instead of being reprimanded, those who take the drug are praised for their “off-the-wall” brilliance.

Miss Graham has worked for BBC Radio 5, Children’s BBC and Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, and says she was offered the drug by a presenter and producer on her first day at work.

She says: “Behaviours that would not be tolerated in a normal job can actually be spun to be part of your creative genius.

“Some of those people are still in place, some are behaving in off-the-wall ways … and people bow down to them.

“There is a culture within the media and within the celebrity world that is very relaxed around the use of cocaine. It’s seen as something that is socially acceptable in industries where this ‘work hard, party hard’ ethos exists.”