Channel 4 censured after comedian Boyle mocks Jordan's son

Published on Monday 4 April 2011 19:06

Channel 4 breached broadcasting guidelines with jokes about Katie Price's disabled son Harvey on Scots comedian Frankie Boyle's show, the media regulator ruled yesterday.

The watchdog received hundreds of complaints about the comments aired on the controversial series Tramadol Nights.

Boyle said that Price married cage-fighter Alex Reid because she needed someone strong enough to protect her from her son's sexual advances.

He also joked that Price and her ex-husband Peter Andre did not want to keep Price's son, and were fighting each other over who would not gain custody.

Harvey, nine, who is large and strong for his age, suffers from physical and mental conditions and needs constant care.

Former glamour model Price complained that the comments, broadcast in an episode of the show last December, were "discriminatory, offensive, demeaning and humiliating".

Channel 4 defended the comments, adding that its job was to champion and pioneer "distinctive voices in British comedy and bring them to a wider audience". It said that viewers were given strong warnings about the show, which started at 10pm, an hour after the watershed.

It denied the joke about Price and Harvey was about Harvey's disability, rape or incest, saying it was "simply absurdist satire".

The broadcaster said that Price had already put her child in the public eye, had sparked complaints about being too sexually explicit in front of her children in her own reality show, and that her new husband Reid - from whom she has since split - "made a series of public jokes about Harvey resembling the fictional character The Incredible Hulk".

But Ofcom said that any "intended satire in the two comments was… obscured by their straightforward focus on Harvey Price and his disability."

It accepted that Price, Reid and Andre "have consciously exposed their and their children's lives to the media". But it said this did not justify humour targeted at a child's expense, especially when the child is "as young as eight years old, and has a number of disabilities which are specifically focused on as the target of that intended humour".

The jokes appeared to "directly target and mock the mental and physical disabilities of a known eight-year-old child who had not himself chosen to be in the public eye", it said.

It added: "Frankie Boyle's comments appeared to derive humour by demeaning the physical and mental disabilities of a known eight-year-old child."

It said the the broadcast was an "erroneous decision on a matter of editorial judgment on the broadcaster's part".Complaints about other sketches in the series were not upheld.

Channel 4 said last night that it "acknowledges Ofcom's findings in relation to Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights and his comments about Katie Price."

A spokesman added: "We welcome their finding that we were not in breach of the code regarding any other sketches or jokes within the series."

However, Price criticised Ofcom for not forcing the broadcaster to air an apology and said Channel 4's role as official UK broadcaster of the 2012 Paralympics should be questioned in the light of the finding.

She said: "While I am pleased that Ofcom have ruled against Channel 4 and I understand they consider this ruling itself to be a sanction against the broadcaster, I am amazed that Ofcom have not required, at the least, an apology to be broadcast.

Ofcom and Channel 4's response was "sadly symptomatic of how disability is treated in our society and should not be accepted", she said.