Jeremy Clarkson is 'confident' he will be able to return to the BBC

Jeremy Clarkson is ‘confident’ he will be able to return to the BBC, but he may be given an executive minder to keep him on the straight and narrow.

The manager would sit above Andy Wilman, Top Gear’s longstanding executive producer, who has known Mr Clarkson since they were children, when they both attended the £10,500-a-term Repton School in Derby.

The two men have been inseparable for years, but BBC executives are concerned that Mr Wilman cannot keep Mr Clarkson in check, following a string of scandals.

‘I think that people do see a way to resolve this, and that is by putting someone strong in to manage the show and manage Clarkson. He is a brilliant broadcaster, everyone can see that,’ a senior BBC figure said.

According to sources close to the Top Gear host, he is keen to return to the Corporation after he was suspended last week for a ‘fracas’ with his producer, Oisin Tymon.

Mr Clarkson, 54, is said to be furious with the way the BBC has treated him, and is particularly angry that a high level BBC executive compared him to the serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. He has instructed lawyers to demand a retraction and demanded a full investigation into who spread the smear.

Both he and Mr Tymon have now given evidence to an internal investigation into their ‘dust up’, and a verdict is expected within days.

Mr Clarkson allegedly split Mr Tymon’s lip with a punch after a long day of filming, when the Top Gear host was offered cold cuts instead of the hot steak he wanted.

However, friends of the Top Gear presenter deny that he punched the producer, and claim that tensions flared over the steak because of another problem with Mr Tymon.

The executive minder to keep Clarkson on the straight and narrow would sit above Top Gear's longstanding executive producer

‘Jeremy did report it himself to Danny Cohen [the BBC’s director of television]. He feels that the BBC has gone too far with smearing him over it, but the aim is to come back to Top Gear.’

BBC bosses are also likely to be keen to find a way to keep him on Top Gear, given its £50million-a-year- contribution to the Corporation’s balance sheet.

Clarkson was suspended last week for a ‘fracas’ with his producer, Oisin Tymon, pictured

However, introducing a new executive minder between Mr Wilman and Mr Clarkson would help it avoid what a source described as some of their most embarrassing ‘excesses’.

It would also go some way to battling the tide of criticism over the Corporation’s ability to manage controversial talents like Mr Clarkson.

Last week, Noel Edmonds, himself a former Top Gear host, accused BBC bosses for being ‘out of touch’, ‘out of control’ and ‘incompetent’ when it comes to dealing with larger-than-life broadcasters.

A senior television source added: ‘It’s entirely a management issue. Or non-management. The BBC has no strong managers so Clarkson and Wilman were left to do what they wanted.’

The two men have been certainly been caught in a string of scandals, after Mr Wilman allowed his friend to use racist language and make other offensive remarks on the show.

Last year, the TV host was forced to apologise after he was filmed using the N-word in the old-fashioned rhyme ‘eeny, meeny, miney, moe’. Then, the host and his crew had to flee Argentina last year when locals objected to a Porsche on the show with the number plate H982 FKL, taken to refer to the 1982 Falklands War.

The BBC ordered a review to see whether racist language was seen as acceptable behind the scenes, after Mr Clarkson used the racist term ‘slope’ in a programme about Burma.

Mr Wilman admitted it was a mistake, but has made it clear that he thinks the Corporation comes down too heavily on Mr Clarkson. He told the television industry magazine, Broadcast, in January: ‘They don’t trust us at heart.’

‘The BBC likes Top Gear when it is naughty but still all under control…it says: “You can be naughty under these conditions”. We walk a tightrope most of the time, sometimes we’re going to fall off it and if you do, that’s when the BBC…. I’m not a fan of their reaction.’

The BBC would not confirm that it is considering a new executive minder for Mr Clarkson. ‘We have an investigation under way to establish the facts, so we wouldn’t comment,’ a spokesman said.

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