BBC Radio 4 presenter in ‘cox sackers’ rowing row
A BBC Radio 4 presenter has landed himself at the centre of controversy after repeating an innuendo laden term whilst discussing the sacking of the Cambridge University rowing team’s cox live on air.
Laurie Taylor committed the faux pas whilst presenting the discussion programme Thinking Allowed, in which he queried so-called ‘cox sackers’ for ditching the smallest member of their crew whilst reading allowed a listeners email.
The ‘grossly offensive play on words’ immediately drew complaints with one listener pointing out that it was uttered at 4pm, when children would have been listening.
Although the incident took place in April of last year it has only now concluded with the BBC Trust deciding to uphold the complaint – following a series rejected apologies from the production team.
The BBC’s editorial complaints team found that the phrase had not been said with sufficient enunciation, meaning some listeners could have misheard the two innocent seeming words for something far worse.