BBC breached editorial standards over BAFTAs racial slur

The BBC breached its editorial standards by broadcasting a racial slur during the Bafta film awards ceremony in February.

Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson could be heard shouting the slur as Sinners stars Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented the award for special visual effects during the ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) 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.

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 22: John Davidson attends the 2026 EE BAFTA Film Awards at The Royal Festival Hall on February 22, 2026 in London, England. (Photo by Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/Getty Images) — LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 22: John Davidson attends the 2026 EE BAFTA Film Awards at The Royal Festival Hall on February 22, 2026 in London, England. (Photo by Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/Getty Images) Getty Images

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.

“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. “