Tourette's sufferer hits out at BBC for not reaching out to apologise

The Tourette's campaigner at the heart of the BAFTA racial slur row has hit out at the BBC for its half-hearted apology.

John Davidson made headlines across the world when he shouted the N-word while black actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage to present an award during the ceremony.

The outburst was involuntarily triggered by Davidson's neurological condition which he has suffered with since he was 12 years old and causes him to sometimes shout expletives or deeply offensive language.

The broadcaster was forced to apologise for failing to edit out the racial slur, which was still audible on the ceremony on iPlayer for around 12 hours before being removed.

Yesterday, an investigation found that the BBC had breached its editorial standards. Following the probe, apologies were sent to Jordan, Lindo and Davidson.

However the Scottish campaigner, 56, said his written apology was not sent to him directly and was only received through a third party, which he said compounded the 'stress and upset' he has endured.

He told the Daily Record: 'The stress and upset I have had to endure has been shocking.

'I have only had a written apology passed on to me by a third party. That says it all really, does it not?' 

Mr Davidson said that the BBC had still failed to grasp the full human impact of the decisions it made in its broadcast of the ceremony.

The BBC said it did not have contact details for the campaigner, who appeared in a documentary for the broadcaster in 1989.

A BBC spokesperson said: 'The BBC was keen to get our apology to Mr Davidson as quickly as possible following the BAFTA’s.'

'Unfortunately, we did not have contact details for Mr Davidson, so we asked a mutual contact to pass our letter on.'

Davidson previously said that he had been sat with a microphone 'right in front of me' and said the BBC should have 'worked harder to prevent anything that I said'.  

The corporation's Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said the inclusion of John Davidson shouting the N-word 'was highly offensive' and had 'no editorial justification'.

However, the ECU said the breach was 'unintentional'.

The BBC's outgoing director-general Tim Davie had ordered a fast-tracked investigation and called it a 'serious mistake'.  

The BBC previously apologised to staff for failing to edit out the word, after it was broadcast on TV and also audible on the ceremony on iPlayer for around 12 hours before being removed.

It led to the Culture, Media and Sport committee writing to Mr Davie 'seeking an explanation' for how a racial slur ended up in the broadcast 'in spite of a two-hour time delay'.

In a response letter to committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage, Mr Davie said: 'I'd like to make clear: although the racial slur was symptomatic of a disability and an involuntary tic, it should never have been broadcast.

'It was a genuine mistake, and we take full responsibility for our error.'

The ECU said members of the production team who had been monitoring the event in an outside broadcast vehicle all said they had not heard the slur.

It found editorial standards were unintentionally breached via the broadcast of the offensive term and in failing to edit it out of the time-delayed showing of the ceremony.

A third breach occurred when the word was not removed from the iPlayer version of the programme until the following morning, a delay the ECU described as a 'serious mistake'.

The ECU report said: 'There was a lack of clarity among the team as to whether the N-word was audible on the recording.

'This resulted in there being a delay before a decision was taken to remove the recording from iPlayer; that decision was not taken until approximately 9.30 the following morning.

Read More

BREAKING NEWS
BBC breached editorial standards by broadcasting Tourette sufferer's racial slur

'In the ECU's view, this delay was a serious mistake, because there could be no certainty that the word would be inaudible to all viewers, and because there was a greater likelihood of its being found intelligible by viewers coming to the iPlayer in the knowledge that it had been spoken.'

The report added: 'The fact that the unedited recording remained available for so long aggravated the offence caused by the inadvertent inclusion of the N-word in the broadcast.'

The ECU said the initial broadcast of the offensive term 'was highly offensive and had no editorial justification' but accepted that members of the production team monitoring the event in the outside broadcast vehicle 'did not hear or recognise the N-word'.

The report said: 'The ECU accepted their account, for two reasons. Firstly, the use of the N-word in that instance was extremely indistinct, to the point where it might well not have been recognised by the production team.

'Secondly, there was another occurrence of the N-word about 10 minutes later, which was recognised by the production team and immediately edited out in accordance with the protocols on offensive language which were in place.

'There is no reason to conclude they would have applied the protocols in one case while deliberately ignoring them in the other.'

Davidson said he had ticked 10 different offensive words during the ceremony but said 'what you hear me shouting is literally the last thing in the world I believe'.

One included calling host Alan Cumming a 'paedophile' when the actor joked about taking Paddington Bear home with him.

In the aftermath of the ceremony, Davidson said he believed the BBC would have physically controlled the sound at the event.

He said: 'I have made four documentaries with the BBC in the past and feel that they should have been aware of what to expect from Tourette's and worked harder to prevent anything that I said – which, after all, was some 40 rows back from the stage – from being included in the broadcast.'   

Davidson is Britain's most high profile sufferer of Tourette syndrome.

In 2019 he was awarded an MBE by the late Queen for his campaign work in trying to raise better awareness and understanding of the condition - and he famously shouted out 'F*** the Queen' at the ceremony, which gives the film its opening scene.

I Swear follows his life from the moment he first started suffering from Tourette's - soon after starting secondary school.

John's parents, David and Heather, played by Stephen Cree and Shirley Henderson, are both shown as struggling to cope with his worsening condition.

Davidson has suggested that the reason his parents split in the 1980s is because of the stress of dealing with his erratic behaviour, which would see him swear, spit food and tic uncontrollably at the dinner table.

Writing in his memoir I Swear, My Life with Tourette's, on which the film is based, he wrote movingly about how his childhood just before his symptoms started were the best years of his life.

At age 16, when little was known about Tourette's he was the star of the 1989 groundbreaking BBC documentary John's Not Mad in which he was shown spitting fish and chips at his mother at home, while his father was seen finding it difficult to stay at the dinner table alongside him.

He has continued to appear in a number of follow-up documentaries throughout his life becoming a 'nationally known ambassador for the Tourette's condition' who gives talks and puts on workshops for school pupils and teachers, and has organised an annual two-day residential Tourette camp for young people.

Campaigners emphasise that the shouting of such offensive language does not imply any meaning on behalf of the sufferer and is entirely involuntary.

I Swear won three awards at the ceremony - best leading actor and rising star for actor Robert Aramayo, who plays Davidson, and best casting.

The BBC has been contacted for comment 

WHAT IS TOURETTE'S SYNDROME?

Tourette's syndrome is a neurological condition characterised by a combination of involuntary noises and movements called tics.

It usually starts during childhood and continues into adulthood. Tics can be either be vocal or physical.

In many cases Tourette's syndrome runs in families and it's often associated with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Tourette's syndrome is named after the French doctor, Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who first described the syndrome and its symptoms in the 19th century. 

There's no cure for Tourette's syndrome, but treatment can help to control the symptoms. 

Source: NHS Choices