Jeremy Clarkson is set to give the BBC his first full account of his infamous fracas with a Top Gear producer next week as questions remain about his future at the corporation.

The presenter and other key figures in the controversy will be interviewed by BBC Scotland director, Ken MacQuarrie, under his investigation that begins on Monday.



Clarkson, who has been suspended pending the outcome of the inquiry, in which the BBC will seek to get the bottom of what happened during the altercation with Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon at a Yorkshire hotel.

It emerged last week that Clarkson telephoned Danny Cohen, the BBC’s director of television to apologise for his part in the row in an attempt to avoid a formal inquiry.

However, Cohen felt he had no option but to suspend the star and cancel the next three episodes of Top Gear – a decision that appears to have enraged Clarkson.

Clarkson and Tymon will give their first full accounts of the row to MacQuarrie in the coming days as BBC executives seek to establish exactly what happened on 4 March at Simonstone Hall near Hawes, north Yorkshire, after Clarkson was told that the hotel had stopped serving hot food.

The Top Gear presenter allegedly verbally abused Tymon and split his lip with a punch, requiring hospital treatment, according to Saturday’s Daily Mirror.

The Mail on Sunday quoted “sources in the Clarkson camp” saying the presenter had not been drinking before the incident and was angry about problems with the production that day, not because he couldn’t have a steak for dinner, as widely reported last week.

It could be weeks before Clarkson’s fate is decided, but there were signs this weekend that the latest controversy has pushed the Top Gear frontman further towards the BBC exit door.

Writing in his Sun column on Saturday, Clarkson hinted that the time may have come for him to leave the hugely-popular BBC2 show. He said the day had to come when “you wave goodbye to the big monsters”.

He added in his Sunday Times column that he seemed to have a “bit of time on my hands at the moment” and had been watching news reports “about a not very interesting fat man who had been suspended from his not very important job”.

His close friend AA Gill wrote in the Sunday Times that Clarkson, while struggling with a the loss of his mother and a number of health issues, felt like he was “working for the enemy”.

“At the BBC, some of Jeremy’s colleagues have treated him as a liability,” Gill wrote. “Not just failed to appreciate him but briefed against him while taking the hundreds of millions his talent earns them and using his image and Top Gear to promote themselves around the world.”

Meanwhile, BBC executives were attempting to contain the fall out from the saga after a Mail on Sunday front-page story quoted an unnamed corporation executive suggesting that Clarkson was “self-destructing” and should check into rehab.

A BBC spokesman said in response to the Mail on Sunday story: “The BBC’s position is the one we set out in a statement last week. We have an investigation led by director of BBC Scotland, Ken MacQuarrie, to establish the facts and people should wait for the outcome of that.”

