British slang 'pikey' OK after all

Top Gear was today cleared of breaching broadcasting rules for using the word ‘pikey’ in a show.

Travellers told Ofcom they were offended when the show's now ex-host Jeremy Clarkson was seen holding a placard with the words Pikey's Peak while Richard Hammond drove a car up a mountain.

The word - used as a derogatory term for gipsies or travellers - was part of a ‘running gag’ between Clarkson and fellow presenter James May about their colleague Hammond’s perceived cheap style.

A similar complaint was lodged with the BBC but eventually not upheld, with the BBC Trust finding that the word had been used to mean ‘cheap’, rather than as a term of racist or ethnic abuse.

In its evidence, the Corporation admitted the word could be ‘a derogatory term’ but cited online encyclopaedia Wikipedia as proof it also referred to someone who ‘lives on the cheap’.

But Matthew Brindley, a spokesman for the Traveller Movement, which made the complaint, told MailOnline today: ‘We're shocked and horrified at Ofcom's decision to uphold use of the P-word.’

He added: ‘We don't like to use it because we believe it’s offensive. We totally disagree with Ofcom’s decision, as we did with the BBC Trust's decision.

‘I think it shows a complete disregard for travellers and gipsies across the UK that a public broadcaster in a programme as widely viewed as Top Gear can use this word freely.’

Ofcom admitted in its findings on the episode broadcast in February last year that ‘some in the audience would perceive the word pikey as a derogatory term for gypsies and travellers’.

But a spokesman added: ‘On balance there was sufficient context in the way the word was used to minimise offence. However, we have advised broadcasters this doesn't mean the use of the word is acceptable in any programme in any context and that it is capable of causing significant offence in certain contexts.’

In the episode, Clarkson had put up the placard during a challenge in which the presenters had to race 1980s hatchbacks, and he and May were ridiculing Hammond's choice of a Vauxhall Nova.

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