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Revealed: BBC bosses' desperate bid to protect second star tarnished by Gregg Wallace scandal as they battle to save MasterChef from total cancellation
Tim Davie could be forgiven for wanting to wind down for the summer holidays, but he must surely have had sleepless nights in recent weeks.
That would explain the harsh words used by Claire Powell, head of compliance for BBC Television, who after seeing the report commissioned by MasterChef producers Banijay, wrote to Gregg Wallace, 60, dismissing him and telling him, in no uncertain terms, that there was no way back for him after multiple complaints of inappropriate behaviour, ranging from sexualised language to groping - all of which he vehemently denies. They point to the demise of Top Gear which, following the sacking of Jeremy Clarkson in 2015 (for assaulting a producer when his dinner didn't arrive after a day's filming), and then the departure of sidekicks James May and Richard Hammond, was relaunched with a completely new set of faces, and flopped catastrophically. Wallace is deadly serious: he has hired Dan Morrison, one of the UK's top litigation lawyers who represented Nigel Farage during his debanking dispute with NatWest, after the bank closed his account at Coutts (which it owns) in 2023, and successfully defended footballer John Terry when he was accused of racially abusing a fellow player in 2011.
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