Must not mock foreign accents

Another joke is squashed

A BBC sports expert has been accused of casual racism for faking a crude Chinese accent while commentating the country's performance in the World Gymnastics Championship.

Mitch Fenner, 69, who has helped the Corporation cover the sport for years, appeared to mock fans of the national team in a display of 'Chinglish' - often ungrammatical English spoken in a heavy accent.

When BBC cameramen zoomed in on two young female fans waving the national flag on Wednesday night, Fenner imagined what they might have to say.

Speaking on BBC Two, he said: 'Oh wow, they say, look at that, we from China.' The Corporation estimates that 1.4million people were tuned in at the time.

Fenner, who coaches the Dutch national team, came in for a tide of criticism, and was also reprimanded by Corporation bosses, who re-edited the iPlayer version of the programme to exclude the comments.

Twitter user @Ryan_S_1993 said: 'Good to see casual racism on the BBC. You may as well have filmed Mitch Fenner making a derogatory face.'

Disbelieving viewer Paul Reynolds asked: 'Did you see a sports commentator did a Mícheál Martin "chinaman voice"? like it's 1953.'

SOURCE