Top Gear has been told off for showing Jeremy Clarkson supping a gin and tonic behind the wheel. The scene featured in last summer’s Polar Special where Clarkson and fellow presenter James May raced Richard Hammond to the Magnetic North Pole.
Clarkson and May had a Toyota Hilux while Hammond made do with a sled and dogs. At one point May pulled out a bottle of gin and some tonic and proceeded to pour two glasses, before asking Clarkson to ‘slow down while I cut the lemon’.
In its monthly publication of rulings the BBC Trust's Editorial Standards Committee rapped Top Gear for letting the presenters drink while driving. The show's producers defended the footage, saying: ‘The item was filmed in an uninhabitable area of the North Pole, in international waters and they weren't shown to be drunk or not in control of the car.’
However the ESC concluded: ‘The scene of drinking whilst driving was not editorially justified in the context of a family show pre-watershed.’