Word 'retard' forbidden on British radio

Author used word to express her scorn of people who reject her scripts.  She was accusing them of poor judgment

Radio 4’s flagship news show Today has been censured by Ofcom for breaching broadcasting rules after crime writer Lynda La Plante used the word ‘retard’ on the programme.

When asked if she got a lot of people writing to her ‘questioning’ her about her work, Miss La Plante said: ‘Not questioning. I get a tremendous amount of fans. I mean, I have a lot of questions that I’d like to ask myself, but the misquoting of me is a consistent and really irritating fact.

‘Today there’s a headline that apparently I call people at the BBC “retards” and its absolutely...’

She denied she had said this at a lecture she gave in Dubai, but did admit she had used the word during her speech.

She pointed out that ‘I said “You do not send a script, full script, anywhere, you learn how to do a treatment, because you don’t know if there’s a retard at the end of that envelope reading it”. Suddenly I’ve called everybody at the BBC a “retard”.’

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