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BBC Cenotaph Top Gear

BBC confirms Matt Le Blanc’s Cenotaph ‘doughnuts’ will not be broadcast

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By John Glenday, Reporter

March 15, 2016 | 2 min read

The BBC has confirmed that controversial footage of Top Gear host Matt Le Blanc within the vicinity of the Cenotaph, Whitehall, will not be aired following outrage at the crass insensitivity of the filming.

Co-host Chris Evans has apologised unreservedly for the incident at the memorial, saying that he and the team were ‘mortified’ by the confluence of imagery and that it had never been their intent to include the war memorial.

Issuing a prepared statement the BBC said: “The Cenotaph was at no point intended to feature in the programme and therefore will not appear in the final film.

"However, we are acutely aware of how some of the images in the press look today via the angle and distance they were taken and for which, as Chris Evans has already said, we sincerely apologise.

"The driver of the car was briefed by production prior to filming as to where to drive and to not do any manoeuvres close to the monument, an instruction to which he fully adhered.

"We would like to make it absolutely clear that the Top Gear team has the utmost respect for the Cenotaph, what it stands for, and those heroic individuals whose memory it serves so fittingly."

However Westminster City Council said that the BBC producers had not disclosed that wheel spins and a doughnut would be performed and had granted permission only for a straightforward drive past.

BBC Cenotaph Top Gear

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