Carol Thatcher was sacked by the BBC because she refused to apologise for using the word "golliwog", Jay Hunt, the controller of BBC One, has said.
Ms Hunt defended the corporation's decision to fire Thatcher from her job as a roving reporter for The One Show, insisting her description of a French-Congolese tennis player had been "hugely offensive".
She said Thatcher had received a harsher punishment than Jonathan Ross, who was suspended after leaving lewd messages on the answering machine of the actor Andrew Sachs, because unlike him she had declined to say sorry.
"We have given Carol ample opportunity to offer a fulsome and unconditional apology for the offence that she caused ... and she's chosen not to do so," Ms Hunt said.
"Jonathan, as soon as he overstepped the mark, was completely clear that he needed to apologise, and he apologised publicly... He said immediately that he was sorry for the offence he caused."
"Regrettably ... Carol doesn't think she has anything to apologise for, and for that reason it is inappropriate for her to continue to work on a show that prides itself on its diversity."
Thatcher refused to apologise after being tipped off by the programme's executive producer that the remarks would be published in a newspaper report.
It is thought that after the comments became the centre of a public row, she privately said she was sorry for causing offence but insisted the comments had been meant in jest.
Ms Hunt said this was not true, saying: "We have ascertained subsequently from the people that were party to the conversation that by nobody's reckoning could it have been deemed to have been used in a jokey fashion."
She added that the excuse would have been insufficient anyway, adding: "Do we think it's appropriate in 2009 for somebody to explain away the use of a word that is deemed by a very substantial proportion of the public to be hugely offensive as a joke?" >>> By Jon Swaine | Thursday, February 5, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Carol Thatcher's Golliwog Comment Was Offensive and Racist, But How Many Heard It?
The BBC's reaction to Carol Thatcher's comment was hysterical, says George Pitcher.
First, let's get something that may be counter-intuitive for most readers out of the way. Carol Thatcher is not blameless in the "golliwog" scandal. I've never met her, but I'm more than willing to accept from those who know her that she is no kind of racist. But you don't have to be a racist to say racist things.
There is a casual, lazy racism of which we can all be guilty; I'm certain that, having also grown up with Robertson's jam, I could easily make the golliwog mistake. And if I did so and caused offence, I like to think I would apologise for it, as I understand Thatcher has tried to do. But her offence is utterly eclipsed by the fatuous, vindictive, officious and sanctimonious response to it from Planet BBC. It is almost beyond belief that a media organisation supposedly staffed by sentient adults could have moved so sententiously to break this butterfly on its wheel.
Yesterday morning, much of the nation sat open-mouthed and frozen over its breakfast, or struck dumb about our ablutions, as Jay Hunt, the controller of BBC One, attempted to justify her organisation's thought police in their Stasi-like pursuit of Thatcher. It is worth trying to deconstruct what she had to say in this extraordinary performance.
Under very respectable cross-examination from Today presenter Sarah Montague, Hunt claimed that Thatcher's remark was "hugely offensive", that the remark was made "in a public space" and that Thatcher had refused the BBC's demand to make a "fulsome and unconditional apology", so she had to go. >>> By George Pitcher | Thursday, February 5, 2009
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