Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha: Giles Coren defends Dan Roan but BBC takes ‘dim view’ of remarks after Leicester owner’s helicopter crash
- Online petition calls for BBC to sack sports editor Dan Roan
- Journalist made disparaging off-air comments about Leicester owner’s personal assistant
BBC sports editor Dan Roan has reportedly been reprimanded by the corporation after a crude remark about Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s personal assistant, who died with the Leicester City owner in Saturday’s helicopter crash.
Roan was picked up by a live Sky News feed streaming on YouTube making off-air comments referring to Nursara Suknamai, a former Thai beauty queen, as the billionaire’s “mistress”.
“The BBC have taken a dim view of this,” a source told British newspaper The Daily Telegraph. “They told him at the outset that the main thing he needed to do was to strike the right tone, and then this happens.”
Roan had been reporting from the memorial outside the club’s King Power Stadium on Monday, standing just yards away from the crash site where thousands of fans, and Srivaddhanaprabha’s family, had laid flowers in tribute.
“The mistress who died in the crash ... otherwise known as a member of staff ... i.e. mistress,” Roan was recorded saying.